Christopher Biow writes on 1 October 1997 at 15:31:26
Wotan <wotan(_at_)netcom(_dot_)com> wrote:
Auto-bouncing mail from the unknown is never a good idea.
For clarity: neither SpamBouncer nor my wrapper recipies do this on mail
that is merely "unknown".
Auto-bouncing mailing lists is an even worse idea.
Agreed--that was only due to my mistake with procmail[-d]@
If something qualifies as spam in your mail filters, /dev/null it.
[...]
case of *probable* spam (body text phrase or badly abused domains) it does
make sense to bounce with a bypass filter, as SpamBouncer and many other
Given that much SPAM these days has forged headers, any auto-bounce
generated with "formail -rt" is likely to bounce. If it doesn't,
there's a good chance that all you've done is helped the SPAMmer
validate his mailing list.
The best good use I can think of for auto-bouncing mail is procmail
processing for an address that is no longer valid -- somebody leaving
a company for example.
Note that I consider "bouncing" different from an automatic
confirmation/acknowledgment message...
Dan
------------------- message is author's opinion only ------------------
J. Daniel Smith <DanS(_at_)bristol(_dot_)com>
http://www.bristol.com/~DanS
Bristol Technology B.V. +31 33 450 50 50, ...51 (FAX)
Amersfoort, The Netherlands {info,jobs}(_at_)bristol(_dot_)com