Bob offers an excellent, thourogh response: > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Bob > Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 7:44 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [SAtalk] (no subject) > [...] 3. An ISP you're sending mail to or receiving mail from is using SpamAssassin. Entirely possible and getting more likely every day.
-------------------- GF: I wonder if it is possible that some frustrated people and sites have adopted a policy where they reply directly back to suspected spammers, and include SA's diagnostics, which in turn has pointer to spamassassin.org site, which presumably eventually leads them to this mailing list? Unfortunately, of course, sending mail directly back to the sender hardly ever works because the sender's address is usually a forgery. In fact, it is probably only the legitimate senders, who had their e-mail misdiagnosed as spam, who will receive such a reply, and if they're not computer savvy, they're going to be confused and possibly angered by a bounced message with a spam report at the beginning. :) Here's an excerpt from this excellent spam "what to do" page, http://www.spamabuse.org/content_DelaingwithSpam-WhattoDo.htm 3.1 What To Say to the Sender Nothing. That's right, don't say anything, at least not via email. First of all, there's not much point. Odds are it's a bogus address. Most of the junk email messages I have received had forged addresses, and most of those were not real addresses anyway. Even if it is a real response address, it may simply be a mailbot that will automatically send you more junk email as a reward for your "interest." Generally, even the valid addresses bounce, because the mailbox is already filled with other angry messages. As I mentioned before, it also could be that the address is that someone else that the junk emailer wanted to punish. Secondly, it has been purported on the net that email responses, especially (and perversely) responses to "REMOVE" request addresses, are in fact used to verify real email addresses, increasing the value of the list for resale. I have no proof of this, but I have seen "validated" lists of email addresses for sale. Never, ever reply to a "remove" address. Therefore, I do not recommend responding directly to the sender by email at all. This is not to say that you should never attempt to contact a junk emailer to express your displeasure, but I recommend fax, phone (toll-free is even better) or even regular snail-mail (see Phone, Fax, and Snail Mail Responses, below). There is no reason that you should have to reveal your name or email address just to lodge a complaint. ------------------------------------------ GF: So, to do this right, an automated script might want to derive the ISP's or relay's closest e-mail domain, and send a note to that site's postmaster, or abuse@ address. This free service maintains a database to make that process more reliable: http://abuse.net/ and their fowarding service, http://abuse.net/howwork.html This and some magic like that in Theo Van Dinter's spam reporting script might actually be feasible, practical, and follow accepted guidelines. If there's a consensus that this would be a Good Thing, I'll volunteer to help, especially on the procmail bits. ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Etnus, makers of TotalView, The best thread debugger on the planet. Designed with thread debugging features you've never dreamed of, try TotalView 6 free at www.etnus.com. _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
