Is it possible to bounce unsolicited mail

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jimbo
  • Start date Start date
Jimbo @Eclipse.co.uk> said:
Is it possible to download headers and then bounce unsolicited mail
Click to expand...


Yes, even by using 3rd party products. Should YOU do the bouncing? No.
Why? Because you won't be bouncing the message back to the spammer,
anyway. You already know they don't use valid e-mail addresses (i.e.,
they never use their own real e-mail address). So your bounces waste
more bandwidth sending to mail servers that have to waste their
resources to reject your fake bounce because no such account exists. Or
the spammer uses a valid e-mail address but it is for some innocents, so
you end up slamming some innocent with a bunch of "bounce spam" and YOU
become part of the problem. You really think all those trojanized PCs
running mailer daemons are really listening for incoming e-mails, like
your bogus NDRs? They spew, they don't listen.

In fact, users of challenge-response e-mail clients and those operating
server-like e-mail clients that issue NDRs can be forced to become
abusers themselves by abusing innocents with "challenge spam" and
"bounce spam" to the point that the abused will get accounts closed for
the senders of this crap. The spammer floods your mailbox with their
crap, you send an equal number of challenges or NDRs to the innocent's
e-mail address, you become the abuser by sending all this "challenge
spam" or bogus NDRs at the innocent, and YOUR account gets closed for
being abusive. Now imagine the spammer would like to close your account
even quicker, so the e-mail address they use is of your ISP's
(e-mail address removed) e-mail address or for some support e-mail address. You
don't think some "corrective action" will be taken against your abuse in
sending out all this mis-addressed challenge and NDR crap? What, you've
never read posts here or in the [anti-]spam groups where someone wants
to know why they are getting thousands of NDRs for e-mails that they
never sent? If I found someone slamming me with tons of NDRs and
consuming my mailbox quota who could be identified (and YOU will be)
then I would definitely report you as an abusive sender to your e-mail
provider to get your account closed. You slamming me with your
ineffective solution and misdirected agression will not be tolerated.
Because the action of sending an NDR emulates that of a mail server,
you'll find your ISP won't care what program is issuing the NDRs and
will terminate your account based on their terms of service, especially
if it says you are not allowed to run any servers.

You aren't hurting the spammer when you issue a bogus NDR for spam that
you received. Your NDRs might go to a valid domain but the username is
undefined but you waste that receiving mail server's resources to accept
your e-mail, find there is no such username, and then maybe issue back
its own NDR. Or your NDRs go to a completely bogus domain so your own
mail server couldn't connect to send your NDR, anyway. Or your NDRs
slam innocents with your proliferation and continuation of the spam.
Your action is not responsible. Vigilantes are recognized as whining
thugs, not heroes. Clean up the turds in your own yard and stop hurling
them over the fence at anyone walking by your yard or into your
neighbor's yard.

You obviously aren't really interested in reducing spam if your
"solution" is to spew out bogus NDRs and challenges all over the
Internet whether it reaches the spammer or not, or waste resources for
undeliverable bounces, or it slams innocents with your crap (which is
unsolicited spam to them since they never originated the message). You
think your crap delivered to the wrong recipient is to be tolerated
anymore than the spam itself? Vigilantes don't care if they kill the
wrong person. Extremists don't care about collateral damage.
 
As a victim of such bounces, I very much agree. I get hundreds to thousands
of bounces NDR / challenges a day for emails I never sent.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

Vanguard said:
Jimbo @Eclipse.co.uk> said:
Is it possible to download headers and then bounce unsolicited mail
Click to expand...


Yes, even by using 3rd party products. Should YOU do the bouncing? No.
Why? Because you won't be bouncing the message back to the spammer,
anyway. You already know they don't use valid e-mail addresses (i.e.,
they never use their own real e-mail address). So your bounces waste more
bandwidth sending to mail servers that have to waste their resources to
reject your fake bounce because no such account exists. Or the spammer
uses a valid e-mail address but it is for some innocents, so you end up
slamming some innocent with a bunch of "bounce spam" and YOU become part
of the problem. You really think all those trojanized PCs running mailer
daemons are really listening for incoming e-mails, like your bogus NDRs?
They spew, they don't listen.

In fact, users of challenge-response e-mail clients and those operating
server-like e-mail clients that issue NDRs can be forced to become abusers
themselves by abusing innocents with "challenge spam" and "bounce spam" to
the point that the abused will get accounts closed for the senders of this
crap. The spammer floods your mailbox with their crap, you send an equal
number of challenges or NDRs to the innocent's e-mail address, you become
the abuser by sending all this "challenge spam" or bogus NDRs at the
innocent, and YOUR account gets closed for being abusive. Now imagine the
spammer would like to close your account even quicker, so the e-mail
address they use is of your ISP's (e-mail address removed) e-mail address or for
some support e-mail address. You don't think some "corrective action"
will be taken against your abuse in sending out all this mis-addressed
challenge and NDR crap? What, you've never read posts here or in the
[anti-]spam groups where someone wants to know why they are getting
thousands of NDRs for e-mails that they never sent? If I found someone
slamming me with tons of NDRs and consuming my mailbox quota who could be
identified (and YOU will be) then I would definitely report you as an
abusive sender to your e-mail provider to get your account closed. You
slamming me with your ineffective solution and misdirected agression will
not be tolerated. Because the action of sending an NDR emulates that of a
mail server, you'll find your ISP won't care what program is issuing the
NDRs and will terminate your account based on their terms of service,
especially if it says you are not allowed to run any servers.

You aren't hurting the spammer when you issue a bogus NDR for spam that
you received. Your NDRs might go to a valid domain but the username is
undefined but you waste that receiving mail server's resources to accept
your e-mail, find there is no such username, and then maybe issue back its
own NDR. Or your NDRs go to a completely bogus domain so your own mail
server couldn't connect to send your NDR, anyway. Or your NDRs slam
innocents with your proliferation and continuation of the spam. Your
action is not responsible. Vigilantes are recognized as whining thugs,
not heroes. Clean up the turds in your own yard and stop hurling them
over the fence at anyone walking by your yard or into your neighbor's
yard.

You obviously aren't really interested in reducing spam if your "solution"
is to spew out bogus NDRs and challenges all over the Internet whether it
reaches the spammer or not, or waste resources for undeliverable bounces,
or it slams innocents with your crap (which is unsolicited spam to them
since they never originated the message). You think your crap delivered
to the wrong recipient is to be tolerated anymore than the spam itself?
Vigilantes don't care if they kill the wrong person. Extremists don't
care about collateral damage.
Click to expand...
 
I read the rather "strong" response that you got from a reader. In addition
to the "do not bounce" response, keep in mind that anything you send out of
your computer also populates your autocomplete cache file known as an NK2
file. I found that out the hard way!!

Randy
Christian Göller said:
Jimbo <sa3214 schrieb am 20.01.2005 22:59:
Is it possible to download headers and then bounce unsolicited mail
Click to expand...

Only possible with OL 2002/2003. If you are using an earlier version you
can use a tool like [1] or [2]

[1] http://www.scheernet.de/postda/index.html
[2] http://www.d-jan.de/mailcheck.html
Click to expand...
 
Is it possible to download headers and then bounce unsolicited mail

In general, it is a bad idea to bounce unsolicited mail. Bouncing does one
of two things: generate an NDR because the SPAMmer used a fake address (most
likely) or confirm to the SPAMmer that your address is valid so more SPAM
can be sent or your address sold.
 
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