30/06/03 Helder Correia : >Well, if the spammer didn't receive a response that the address was >invalid, that's proof that they have successfully probed a valid >address, isn't it?
Not necessarily. Very bad servers don't issue any feedback at all in any circumstances. Such servers are probably the spammer's favorites, since they can just invent any random addresses and sell gigantic mailings to advertisers who have no way to tell the difference. The worst I met so far is Caramail (a webmail server): some messages disappear even if the address is valid, so handling bad addresses or providing a reliable service is really not a priority. Hotmail is probably good at not handling errors nor caring for the users either (but then, it's normal: they actually accepted a licence allowing it to silently refuse and even wipe messages when their box gets full or isn't checked in a month; I can't wait to see the distributed and rented computing platform M$ tries to build; expect messages such as "Welcome back to your M$ secure storage space, the only sensible way to preserve your data. Your documents were erased since you didn't login in the last 30 days but your personal information was reserved, would you like to re-open your account for free?") ---- VRic ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
