So, as a general rule, we intend to BOUNCE anything that gets identified as spam via the blacklists and the phase filtering.
No, no, no. Please do not.
Here's the question about the theory:
Spammer sends spam to invaliduser(at)domain.com. iMail bounces it back to the sender... -- theoretically confirming that invaliduser(at)domain.com is a valid user --- Thereby inviting more spam to the invaliduser(at) account...
... which would eventually eat up all the bandwidth in the universe and it will start raining frogs.
I've heard that this type of "unintentional confirmation of a valid account" is an urban myth - but who knows?
From what we have seen, that is indeed an urban myth.
However, the main reason *not* to bounce spam is that by doing so *you* become a spammer! Specifically, about 99% of all spam is sent with a fake return address. So you simply end up sending the spam to someone else. If you think it is wrong for someone to send you spam, then bouncing spam is wrong. It's kind of like putting up a sign on the door of your business "We have an alarm system -- but the guy two doors down does not."
Worse, it is much harder to detect bounced spam than real spam (since the bounced spam often comes from a "good" source). If too many people start intentionally bouncing spam, blacklists will get created to list the mailservers doing this -- which means that your good mail could start to get blocked.
-Scott
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