Quoting David Stanaway ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > My mail system has a number of users, and I prefer to let the recipient > decide what is spam.
There's a minor problem with this, about which more below. > Some list servers such as yahoogroups (May it rot in pieces) have the > annoying behavior of deactivating your subscription on hard bounces > from MTAs so whenever a list I am subscribed to with lax attachment > policies gets a worm, and I hard bounce it with mime-header-checks, I > get deactivated. So this is just one example of hard bouncing spam not > being a great system wide policy right now (Unless you don't like your > users :P). Bouncing spam at all, in any way, is irresponsible admin behaviour. Consider: Essentially all spam forges as much header information as possible, and the newer generation even forges the envelope return-path data. Therefore, if you bounce spam, it is almost 100% guaranteed to be sent out to a forged address -- a party (extant or not) that did not send the original spam in the first place. In effect, you are generating _additional_ spam with each and every such bounce. However, if your system is able to determine _during the SMTP session_ that the mail is unwanted (as spam or for some other reason), it can issue a 55X Reject error and refuse delivery, instead of accepting the mail and then having to make the poor choice between /dev/nulling the received mail and issuing an almost certainly inappropriate bounce message. Smarter and better remedies are possible during SMTP time, than they are after delivery. A number of other steps are possible, beyond what I've mentioned. And, of course, by the time your users have a chance to apply their judgement on the matter, the MTA has already accepted the mail and handed it off to an LDA or MDA -- so the opportunity is lost. -- Cheers, Rick Moen Bu^so^stopu min per kulero. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
