murr rhame <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> On Sun, 29 Apr 2001, Adam Bailey wrote:
>> ... A single forged spam run of several million pieces could
>> knock an innocent party off of the Internet when AOL floods
>> them in bounces. Thus, AOL just drops it.
> If someone is running an open relay that's being hijacked by
> spammers, they aren't exactly what I would call innocent.
> Perhaps they're not malicious but at the very least they are
> negligent. I doubt AOL is dropping bounces out of kindness.
I'm not sure you understand the issue. The site getting all of the
bounces may not be doing anything wrong at all. It's very common now for
spam software to use some valid domain name in the envelope sender of its
messages to avoid spam checks for valid domains. The messages never go
anywhere near that domain and that domain isn't at fault in the slightest,
but they get all the bounces.
There have been a few successful court cases against spammers for doing
this, but of course that doesn't stop the scum, and it's an extremely
widespread practice.
--
Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
