Yes, what you are calling hard bounces (TrashFinder calls that "blocking") -
including "user not found" - have to occur during the receipt of mail.
They're the best kind of error, because they are sent back to the spammer's
mail server while it is connected to you, making it virtually impossible to
have those replies sent somewhere else. (Regular bounces go to address that
can and often are forged -- bouncing mail that way will get your mail server
blacklisted by some servers).
Trashfinder Gateway has the ability to block mail because it fails an RBL,
has a bad user name, a bad HELO string, fails SPF checking, relay attempts,
and invalid IPs (and probably could do more). But blocking always has to be
automated; you'll never see the messages that are blocked (as you never
receive them in the first place) and because it can be a hard problem to
track down, it's necessary to be somewhat conservative. For instance, the
HELO string is supposed to be the resolvable domain of a mail server, but
many legitimate systems don't have it set up properly and even the big mail
systems like Hotmail and GMail only do very conservative checks on it for
that reason. Us little fish can't be more aggressive as we'll block
legitimate mail (I had one correspondent that forced me to weaken the checks
as his university had a particularly messed up mail server). Also, because
it is done during the message header, you can't block mail based on body
filters like search strings (if you block it late, a lot of mailers will
just retry even though the RFC says that they should quit -- retries just
make the problem worse, of course.)
Randy Brukardt
_____
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of John Martoccio
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 4:36 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Does anyone have a method to manually BOUNCE messages ?
Eric & Theo and list members,
Thank you for your input, I didn't realize that a bounce had to occur while
receiving ! And the last thing I want to do is bother someone else
(unintended victim) with more junk.
The server I run is a non-profit venture, so cost of a Barracuda or other
spam-service becomes a personal burden. Sounds like Apple's bounce method
may cause more problems than it fixes.
I was looking for another more effective method for rejecting spam (besides
just deleting), as my only real spam prevention is changing user names.
Thanks,
John Martoccio
_____
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of Zaxalon Webmaster
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 3:23 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: FW: Does anyone have a method to manually BOUNCE messages ?
John,
Thanks for the compliment but I'm afraid AVP isn't under development any
more. I'd recommend a Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall and in front of the
IMS server. The Barracuda is a fantastic product for combating spam.
Also, note that many spammers also use hard-bounced messages to spam by
forging the reply address within the spam as the intended spamming
recipient, and then intentionally bounce the spam message off of a server
configured as you have described. Without SPF or Domain Keys what you are
talking about doing might have the opposite of the Intended effect.
Spammers more often than not forge the reply address so effective rejection
really needs to take place before or during actual message delivery.
Regards,
n Eric
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of John Martoccio
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 1:18 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Does anyone have a method to manually BOUNCE messages ?
Many spammers use an automated scripts to detect a HARD-BOUNCED message
(user not found) errors, and automatically remove them from their send
lists.
I am looking for a routine (searched but cannot find programs written like
"mail-bounce" by Gary Renshaw) that can read messages in a folder, and reply
to all with a HARD BOUNCE.
I use auto-pass (bplugin0) to pass messages to certain addresses regardless
of senders, and have Trash-finder catch everything else in the trash folder,
where I can review before relay/move-to a spam folder. I would like a
program to send a hard bounce to everything in the SPAM folder.
I have a friend with an Apple email client that has a BOUNCE feature, and he
tells me since using it, he gets NO JUNK mail at all !
The absolutely ideal situation for me, is to have a button in AVP (my
favorite email review program) that could bounce everything selected !
Thanks,
John Martoccio
_____
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of Zaxalon Webmaster
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 12:43 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: FW: Does anyone have a method to manually BOUNCE messages ?
How would this eliminate spam? It would occur to me that bouncing spam
would simply create more of it, especially if the return address is forged.
n Eric Helfgott
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of John Martoccio
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 9:41 AM
To: 'Trash Finder List'; [email protected]
Subject: Does anyone have a method to manually BOUNCE messages ?
Good Morning,
I am searching for a method that I could BOUNCE spam mail with "550, user
not found error", in an effort to eliminate spam. This would work best for
me, on the raw messages MIME, preferably able to BOUNCE all messages that
are in a particular folder.
Any ideas ?
Still using IMS: SMTPRCV, Trashfinder, SCSMfilter, AVP...
Sincerely,
John Martoccio
