Can someone explain this to me?
I have a web-site where people can sign up to receive occasional
e-mails. When they sign up, my code sends an e-mail to the given
address asking for confirmation. Of course, if the e-mail address is
invalid the confirmation bounces back to me as undeliverable.
It appears that some sort of bot is occasionally filling out the form
with a bad e-mail address. I get several bounces a week for what often
look like outdated or made up addresses. Here are a few of the errors I
get back from the the relevant mail servers:
- Host or domain name not found.
- No route to host
- mailbox unavailable
- This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account
The site isn't very active and doesn't get many sign-ups at the moment.
Pretty much all the sign-up activity is this sort of stuff. It happens
too often to just be a case of someone mistyping their e-mail address
(twice) when they sign up. I just retested the code using an external
e-mail account, it works properly when given a valid e-mail address.
My question is --- what's the point? Why is a bot interested in signing
bad addresses (or any addresses, for that matter) up for a mailing
list. I certainly haven't hired anyone to promote the site. Can anyone
enlighten me as to the motivation behind this?
-Brian
--
--------------------
Brian P. Martin, Chief Consultant
Martin Consulting Services, Inc.
Phone: 503-617-4500
E-mail: [email protected]
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