Karsten Bräckelmann-2 wrote: > > On Mon, 2009-05-11 at 06:56 -0700, an anonymous Nabble user wrote: >> THE PROBLEM: I'm signed up to over 300 forums, shops, sites etc, so >> there's >> no way I could make an email address box for all of those >> "pseudoaddresses", >> as it were. So I can't turn the catchall off. > > Sure can, why not? Just alias them to a real address... You'll notice > that you'll get *much* less spam, once you disabled the catch-all.
I've thought about this, but I think my host or cpanel limits me to 200 forwards. What happens to the rest? > The problem is with the design itself. Only the real sender can and will > confirm. The challenge to the *forged* sender of spam will not be > responded to. Good for you, bad for everyone else. You are sending > backscatter! Spammers are using the very same addresses the are spamming > as the sender. Thus your glorious solution to finally end the spam once > and forever is SENDING SPAM to innocent humans, bystanders, mirroring > your spam to them. No more than the standard backscatter you get when someone has joe-jobbed your email address. Every couple of months, for a day or two, I'll get 400-500 bounces a day sent from my hijacked address. > Seems to explain why you're using Nabble instead of subscribing to the > mailing list. You do not want my email. But it'd be whitelisted, I think. And the only reason I use nabble is that often technical lists are full of people who spend their time doing weird things like trying to make their emails appear as attachments for anyone not using Elm via emacs, in the bizarre belief that: a: they are following an RFC (which never actually specified that) b: they think they're being clever c: the other unix admins in their late 40s on the list will think they're being clever. when in fact what they should be doing is spending the time wondering why they are divorced and so very very lonely. That's why I use web interfaces - keeps the noise down :) Anyway, I digress.. > I seriously hope you're not getting much help on integrating such a > horribly C/R backscatter beast. If, instead, you are willing to drop > boxtrapper and need help with SA, we'd be glad to assist. OK, you make the point very clearly! So, if I don't use the boxtrapper method, what do I do with the 1 in 10,000 emails which is a false positive and isn't on my whitelist? How do I give that email the extra chance? >> And while I'm here, how come there's a large and rapidly growing binary >> file in /home/myaccount/.spamassassin/auto-whitelist which currently >> has 5mb of spammy addresses I've never emailed? > > It's the AWL, a historical score averager [2] for the senders addresses. But AFAICS (or the docs suggest) this is for whitelisting email addresses sent FROM my account, but the logs show my account definitely DIDN'T send this email. >> Thanks, and apology for the length of this, but over the 1.5 months I've >> been battling this, I've built up quite some info! > > Unfortunately, that info didn't include some real hints about the > challenge response sender-verification pest, and why it is BAD. > > Please, do NOT use challenge response sender-verification, do NOT use > boxtrapper. I can tell you're hinting at something...just say what you mean :) Anyway, thanks for the help on this. You've persuaded me - I'll find another method than BoxTrapper. It'll still involve spamassassin, I just can't think of how to catch the false positives. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Boxtrapper-and-Spamassassin-Cpanel-11-strange-behaviour.-tp23483808p23509573.html Sent from the SpamAssassin - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
