Steve Haeck wrote: > Bowie Bailey wrote: > > > > The best way is to use your MTA. Set up a method for your users to > > create these email addresses as real email aliases in your MTA. > > Then you can set your MTA to only accept valid email addresses and > > the problem goes away. > > That would be a problem - since there is no definitive list of 'valid' > email addresses - however I do know the form of all valid email > addresses. If I could replace list-based lookup with a function to > parse and validate email addresses with my MTA, I'd be laughing.
That should be possible. The amount of work necessary will depend on your MTA. With Courier, you can write a filter module in Perl or PHP. I don't know about the others. > It's no big problem to process every spam - but it would be desirable > to at least mark all these made-up email address destinations with a > higher spam score. Is there an existing rule I can customise, or > would I have to start from scratch? The problems with processing every spam tend to rise with the amount of junkmail you receive. I had to rework my mail setup here a few years ago when the amount of spam coming in was more than my system could deal with. Once my front-line mail server could reject invalid email addresses, my mail volume dropped way down and allowed my servers to keep up without a spam blast causing massive delays. There is no existing rule, but writing one shouldn't be difficult. One suggestion has already been given. The main hassle will be with mailing lists and such which send via BCC. -- Bowie
