On Wed, May 18, 2005 at 09:16:15AM -0700, Mike Jackson wrote: > A couple days ago, I set up AOL's "feedback loop" (though the loop part is > a misnomer, since you can't actually respond to the messages) so I could > monitor complaints against my employer's servers. Looking through the > messages AOL says their members reported as spam, I noticed that none of > them actually originated on my servers; they were all messages that were > sent to addresses at the servers, then forwarded to AOL accounts, and since > AOL records the IPs of all servers the message touched, I'm tainted by them. > > So, how do you deal with this? My setup on the servers is like this: > > * Sendmail > * Using Spamhaus SBL/XBL to deny listed servers at MTA level > * Most of the AOL forwarding is done via Sendmail's virtusertable > * Mail passed to SA via procmail on a per-user basis (not site-wide, yet, > but that's in the plans) > > The solutions I've already thought of and rejected: > > * Invoking SA via milter and denying spam at the MTA level, but few > customers would want spam denied outright (heck, I know I wouldn't). Of all > these possible solutions, though, it's the only one that wouldn't leave my > server's mark on the message. > > * Setting up user accounts for the users with AOL forwards, filtering the > mail through SA, then delivering it only if SA didn't mark it as spam, but > that's a lot of users to set up. > > * Doing the preceding with a single user account and redirecting the mail > to the right addresses via procmail and/or formail, but that wouldn't scale > well and would wind up being a mess. > > * Invoking a policy of not forwarding to AOL accounts, but we're a web > design/hosting firm with about 200 domains, and a handful of customers have > AOL addresses, and that sort of policy wouldn't stand. > > Any other workable suggestions? (And please, no suggestions that involve > changing MTAs. It's not going to happen.)
As I understand it, once you have your server listed on the AOL feedback loop, it is whitelisted, so that may solve the immediate problem. <rant> The big problem with AOL's system is clueless (l)users who hit the "report as spam" button accidentally or intentionally. I am the owner of a mailing list hosted on the server of an IPP. We started getting postings rejected by AOL's servers. I voluntarily listed myself as the stuckee to get the feedback for the list server. I found that the vast majority of feedback I got was from some subscriber to one of the other lists, who, I guess, thinks hitting the spam button is a good way to get unsubscribed from the list, because s/he has about half the brains of a good fence post and can't figure out how to unsubscribe him/herself. The other problem is that, for privacy reasons, AOL expunges the recipient's address, so we have no idea whom to unsubscribe. It's a stupid system. I heard of one list owner who solved his problem by unsubscribing all his AOL listers, I think, after posting or emailing them that all of them need to subscribe themselves. </rant> Cheers, -- Bob McClure, Jr. Bobcat Open Systems, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.bobcatos.com God is more interested in our availability than our ability.
