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Re: Help me on this one please

2002-12-10 03:39:04
Nancy McGough <nm-this-address-is-valid(_at_)no(_dot_)sp(_dot_)am> wrote:

As other people have said, the requirement is that the Message-ID
be unique -- there is no requirement that it "should properly be
formed from your domain name." The next version of Pine (4.51)
has a new feature called

 scramble-message-id

I'm using an alpha release of Pine 4.51 to compose this message
and if you check the Message-ID, you'll see it does not contain
my (or any) domain name. I hope there aren't any spam-detection
tools out there that think messages with Message-IDs like this
are spam -- please let me know if there are so I can warn the
Pinesters.

Specifically, RFC 2822 says:

                             Though other algorithms will work, it is
   RECOMMENDED that the right hand side contain some domain identifier
   (either of the host itself or otherwise) such that the generator of
   the message identifier can guarantee the uniqueness of the left hand
   side within the scope of that domain.

Frankly, Nancy, I do look for domain-type syntax to the right of the @
in Message-ID: as a successful spam-fighting measure.  The meat of the
concept is, though, that I don't decide it's spam solely on that indicator.
It is simply one strong indicator.  Many, perhaps most, spammers mess
around with Message-ID's.  Very few normal correspondents send mail that
does not conform to the "recommended" syntax.

In my heuristics, I first do a quick, rough assessment of the overall
trustworthyness of a message.  My $TRUST heuristic defaults to 3,
tops out at 5, and bottoms out at 1.  Your message would not be in
the lower echelon of $TRUST for me, so I wouldn't decide it was spam
based on the failure to use recommended Message-ID syntax.  But if
there were a couple of other negative indicators, the Message-ID:
choice of yours would suck you into my spam traps, yes.  Absolutely.

In short, and using language from legal analysis metaphorically,
Message-ID's that do not conform to the recommended syntax are
well overrepresented among spammers, and underrepresented among
legitimate correspondents.  And I score the mail accordingly.

Dallman

-- 
dman


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