It looks pretty convincing to me, because the reflected delivery really does get bounced at the HELO/envelope stage. In effect, SIMS is relaying to itself and the relayed mail is not accepted. It also happens to deliver a copy.Alternatively, if I really want to keep a copy of the mail but make it look like it bounced, I leave the real account active and saving mail to a mailbox, but I also make it reflect the mail to either "closed" or "full". The sender gets a closed or full message - I get to keep a copy of the mail.Ah, but would this technique stand much of a chance of working when it comes to spammers? Although reflected back, the mail has indeed been accepted for delivery (only way it can be reflected, no?). If the spammer happens to be culling his e-mail list for "real" addresses (ha ha), does he/she not concentrate on the initial connection?
Someone who knows what they are doing will see fishy looking bounces from these tricks, but most idiots don't know what they are doing. ;->
Put another way, I thought that the only way a bounce would potentially have an affect on a monitored sending server is if the connection is rejected without any acceptance at all. I'm skeptical that these mail programs we hear about with anti-spam features to "send back bounce messages" have any effect at all. As far as a spammer is concerned, the message was accepted long before any such bounce message is created, no?
Unless I am sadly mistaken (and I have been many times) this produces the same result you would get if the mail was addressed to one good address and one closed address. The mail is delivered to the good address and the bounce message is returned for the closed one.
--
Neil
Neil Herber
Corporate info at http://www.eton.ca/
Eton Systems, 15 Pinepoint Drive, Nepean, ON, Canada K2H 6B1
Tel: (613) 829-4668
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