In <64(_dot_)47646c51(_dot_)2ebce9cf(_at_)aol(_dot_)com> "Brian Barrios"
<brianantispam(_at_)aol(_dot_)com> writes:
[...] No connections are ever dropped in an effort to fight
spam. I obviously cannot claim connections are never dropped, but if we
want to block your mail, we just do so, we never attempt to hide this fact.
For that matter, no email is ever silently deleted either. All email is
either blocked, (ie, issued a 421, 554, 550) or delivered. However, I will
point out that if we send a 220 status upon opening a connection, we do
reserved the right to issue a failure code later on in the transaction,
potentially after the "mail from" or the "data" section.
IMHO, this is *exactly* how good mail servers should be run.
I especially like the "no email is dropped" part. That is one of the
main reasons why I've been involved in the SPF project. In order to
keep email as a reliable form of communication, people need to know if
their email got through or not. Too many systems have started to
silently drop email instead of bouncing because of all the forged
email. Yes, it is best if you can reject during the SMTP session
rather than bounce later, but that isn't always possible.
Thanks!
-wayne