spf-discuss
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RE: Which address of this list should auto-responses go?

2004-08-21 09:36:46
Ok, how is he going to know it is a real list and not a new form of spam?
Is there a list of real list servers?

Maybe, when the auto responder receives an email from a list that the auto
responder and never seen before, it should send the response to the person
that it was addressed to.  If they never accept the response, then the auto
responder system will block that list, or at least block it for that person.
But if multiple emails come from the list do not send multiple responses,
your users would not like that!

Guy

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com
[mailto:owner-spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com] On Behalf Of Ralf 
Doeblitz
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2004 3:59 AM
To: spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com
Subject: Re: [spf-discuss] Which address of this list should auto-responses
go?

--On Samstag, August 21, 2004 14:54:37 +0800 AccuSpam 
<support(_at_)accuspam(_dot_)com> wrote:
[...]
The auto-response has to be sent if list is not whitelisted, otherwise a
spammer could mimick list headers to forged senders or non-existent
address.

Sending auto responses to a list owner address will get your server
blocked by the list admin on most mailing lists very quickly. Sending
them them to the mail author will take longer but lead to the same
result due to complaints about this misbehaviuor.

Just do not send auto responses for list mails. Ask yourself why all
respectable auto responder software has (sometimes quite extensive)
filters to avoid exactly this misbehaviour.

man vacation:
       No message will be sent unless login (or an alias supplied using
       the -a option) is part of either the ``To:'' or ``Cc:'' headers
       of the mail. No messages from ``???-REQUEST'', ``???-RELAY'',
       ``???-OWNER'', ``OWNER-???'', ``Postmaster'', ``UUCP'',
       ``MAILER'', or ``MAILER-DAEMON'' will be replied to (where these
       strings are case insensitive) nor is a notifi- cation sent if a
       ``Precedence: bulk'' or ``Precedence: junk'' line is included in
       the mail headers. The people who have sent you messages are
       maintained as a db(3) or dbm(3) database in the file .vacation.db
       or .vacation.{dir,pag} in your home directory.

man procmailrc:
       If the regular expression contains `^FROM_DAEMON' it will be
       substituted by `(^(Mailing-List:|Precedence:.*(junk|bulk
       |list)|To: Multiple recipients of |(((Resent-)?
       (From|Sender)|X-Envelope-From):|>?From )([^>]*[^((_dot_)%(_at_)a-
       z0-9])?(Post(ma?(st(e?r)?|n)|office)|(send)?Mail(er)?|daemon|
       m(mdf|ajordomo)|n?uucp|LIST(SERV|proc)|NETSERV|o(wner|ps)
       |r(e(quest|sponse)|oot)|b(ounce|bs\.smtp)|echo|mirror|
       s(erv(ices?|er)|mtp(error)?|ystem)|A(dmin(istrator)?|MMGR
       |utoanswer))(([^).!:a-z0-9][-_a-z0-9]*)?[%@>\t
       ][^<)]*(\(.*\).*)?)?$([^>]|$)))', which should catch mails coming
       from most daemons (how's that for a regular expression :-).

Auto responses to list mails are considered bad behaviour by many
netizens. Consider this and decide wether you want your server to be
blocked by the MTAs that I administer (*before* you send me an auto
response that will cause me to do exactly that).

Ralf Döblitz

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