Abigail, I would tend to agree with you except for one fact that I cannot ignore - since I changed the "From:" address for the bouncing, my spam has *noticeably* decreased! Some email addresses that were deluged with spam only have a few coming in now. This is my own *real* personal experience - how can I deny that? True, the absolutely correct format would be [EMAIL PROTECTED],dnslive.com where 'xxx' would be the server number, but my way *does* work!
As for the email to fraudulent addresses bouncing back, that no longer happens - at least not with MailWasher Pro v3.1 as it checks the address some way and if it is fraudulent, it won't send it! If you have your error reporting turned on, you will see the messages from MailWasher Pro saying as much!
The articles you pointed me to are obviously written for the 'free' version and *not* the 'Pro' version. Their points do not apply to MailWasher Pro - it's much more intelligent than the 'free' version. The second article actually looked like it was written by a spammer unhappy with getting bounces! ;-)
I flag everyone I want to receive email from as "Friend" - including everyone in lists I belong to. Everyone else gets bounced - period. :) I've blacklisted all common domains - entire domains - such as AOL, Hotmail, Lycos, Yahoo, Earthlink, Netcom - just to name a few. I still get email from those domains from those individual addresses I've flagged as "friend".
I always doublecheck everything that is 'blacklist' flagged before I process the email just to make sure someone new from a 'blacklisted' domain that I want to receive from isn't in it, and if so, I flag them as "Friend" and no longer have to worry about accidentally bouncing to them. MailWasher Pro puts the 'preview' pane directly below the header list pane, so it's a simple matter to quickly check an email and determine if it is spam or not. If it is - BOUNCED!
If you haven't looked at MailWasher Pro, and are still using the free version, you might want to try the 30 day trial. I bet if you do, you'll upgrade long before the 30 days are up - it's THAT GOOD! :)
Cheers, Tom
At 02:09 PM 08/21/2003 -0700, you wrote:
On Thursday, August 21, 2003, 12:21:06 PM, Cyberspace Publishing commented:
CP> Before you shoot yourself in the foot with it, though, you might CP> want to read my article "Am I Dumb Or Dumber?" posted at CP> http://www.internet-marketing-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2344 CP> where I explain how to properly configure 'bouncing' so you don't CP> end up increasing your spam instead of decreasing it the way I CP> did! ;-)
Tom, you wrote some things in your article that I think are technically incorrect. I'm a big fan of Mailwasher, but I disabled the supposed "bounce" feature a long time ago. The reason - it is not a true "bounce" and will not be recognized by the spammers as such. But since spammers often use forged email addresses in the "From" field, or nonexistent return emails, it WILL increase the overall volume of email, help to contribute to server overload in general, and will generate even more bounce-backs to you.
You wrote:
CP> For this example, let's say your email address is CP> [EMAIL PROTECTED] Under the third tab, where it wants CP> an email address to put into the "From" field, instead CP> of putting [EMAIL PROTECTED], you put CP> [EMAIL PROTECTED] Now what happens is that the CP> bounced email received by the spammer looks like it CP> really did come from the mail server, and that your CP> address really is no longer valid. They will remove the CP> address from their list, and you should receive no CP> further email from them.
This is not true. It makes the Mailwasher message look like what YOU receive when you see a bounce message, but it is not a true bounce. A true bounce occurs at the MTA level, when the email is rejected by Sendmail or Qmail or whatever program is being used. The bounce is IMMEDIATE and it also includes appropriate RFC codes.
Spammers who purge inactive names from their lists will have software that recognizes those server-initiated bounces, but their software is not fooled at all by an email from Mailwasher configured to look like a bounce. The headers on your Mailwasher fake bounce will tell the true story, including routing information.
In any case, the majority of spammers probably don't bother cleaning their lists, and even if Spammer A removes your email, if he has sold his list to Spammers B,C, & D, your fake bounce will do no good.
On the other hand, as noted, it really makes things a lot worse for your ISP. For example, read this: http://www.asde.com/support/mailwash/mailwash.html
http://tinyurl.com/krqi (Note - this leads to a post at the computercops.biz site - I do not agree with the abrasive tone of the poster, but the information in the initial posts on that page plus ensuing discussion pretty much reflects the point I am trying to get across)
-Abigail
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