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Re: Auto reply?

2003-04-29 14:54:54
On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, Tony L. Svanstrom wrote:

TLS> On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 the voices made Alan Clifford write:
TLS>
TLS> AC> On Mon, 28 Apr 2003, LuKreme wrote:
TLS>
TLS> AC> L> No, it doesn't.  For example, I may have sent you a private reply to
TLS> AC> L> your question.  If I got back a "prove you love me" request, I'd 
junk
TLS> AC> L> it an you'd never see the reply I sent.
TLS>
TLS> AC> That's OK with me.
TLS> AC>
TLS> AC> After all, I have set the reply-to to the list address and, if you 
really
TLS> AC> must send a personal email, I have provided a to:  address below that
TLS> AC> would by-pass the the autoresponder and put you in my whitelist.  If 
that
TLS> AC> is too difficult for an unsolicited email sender, then so be it.
TLS>
TLS>  That's just it, he didn't mean "unsolicited"... You know how to set
TLS> up such a thing, but most people will set it up and then go on asking
TLS> questions on mailinglists without setting correct reply-to's and/or
TLS> forgetting to whitelist the mailinglist.
TLS>

In the example given, we are not talking about most people and solicited
mail -  the example cited an unsolicited email to me.  Ok, I wouldn't
object to such an email but it would have been unsolicited.

I receive spam to the lists(_at_)clifford(_dot_)ac so mail to that address is 
now
filtered into the spam box anyway.

At the moment, the autoreply works quite well for me.  I have a low volume
of real mail and people I communicate with are in the white list.  I can
whitelist outgoing recipient addresses and can put the alan+1@ on website
forms.  And yes, people emailing me for the first time may have to reply
to my autoresponder.  If they don't like it, the answer is obvious - don't
email me.

However, I reckon the future is bleak as spam becomes more sophisticated
and personalised.  I receive some spam that has personized FROM_ and from:
fields but these are not very sophisticated - basically randomwords @
clifford . ac.  I sure that soon someone will start to link their target
addresses with from: addresses that are more likely to be accepted;
obtained, for example, by searching the web and newsgroups to find
associated addresses.

It really makes me sad that just because I have an electronic mailbox,
people think that that gives them permission to email me and to set up
automated devices to email me.  And having just got broadband and set up a
webserver, I assume that

217.208.216.25 - - [28/Apr/2003:12:21:58 +0100] "GET
/c/winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir HTT
P/1.0" 404 291

is similar behaviour by the scum of the internet.  I don't understand it
yet but it looks very naughty.

But what really makes me cross is the unaddressed rubbish put through my
letter box by the postman.  I have taken to putting it into pillar boxes.



Alan

( Please do not email me AS WELL as replying to the list. Personal
  email is welcome but may invoke a password autoresponder - the
  current pass-through address is alan+1@  )


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