On 3/15/02 11:25 PM, Jim Robertson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > A week or two ago someone suggested using a "Bouncer" applescript as an > anti-spam weapon. I obtained a copy and tried it. The notion is that the > spam recipient can extricate himself from the spam recipient list by telling > the sender that the email address to which the spam was sent is invalid. > > The only problem with this on the half dozen spam bounces I've tried is that > the spammer has, in each instance, faked his own email address, so there's > no where to bounce the message TOO!
That's correct. Bouncing junk email back to the sender is largely worthless. Frequently these addresses are forged, because bulk marketers don't *want* bounces. In fact, if you ever see a raw address list, you'll find it's full of a lot of junk -- such as munged addresses and even Message-IDs. This is because the harvesters sell their lists based on how many "addresses" are in it, without actually caring if the addresses are valid. Besides, in rare cases where the bounce actually gets through to the sender, they can easily tell if it's fake. Assuming they don't ignore it in the first place for the above reasons. I've been bouncing certain unforged messages using procmail for years, and they still come. The best time to bounce junk email is during the SMTP transaction. By the time it gets to Entourage, it's too late. -- Adam Bailey | Chicago, Illinois [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Finger/Web for PGP [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.lull.org/adam/ -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
