Greg Troxel wrote:
Alan <spamassassin.tw...@ambitonline.com> writes:
It's sent to the bit bucket, not done in the MTA. In this case, each
account can set individual thresholds and has an individual set of
local rules, so that might be why. I'd prefer to 550 them as well,
although I suspect the majority of sources just don't care. Lately the
most insidious stuff has been coming from VPS providers with
insufficient vetting.
For actual spam, it doesn't matter if you /dev/null or 550 them.
My point -- to the list, not really so much to you since I realize you
have your own reasons -- was that there is a possibility of a legit
sender's message hitting the threshold, and for that message, it is much
better to 550 than /dev/null so they can figure it out. It's only for
that very rare legit mail that it matters, in my view, but there it's
important.
*nod* At least the sender knows something has gone wrong.
Unfortunately, the weakness in this is that the *recipient* then has to
magically figure out that their mail provider has - for whatever reason
- rejected an email that they probably wanted. If you're lucky the
sender has a clue, and will use this fancy device known as a
"tel-e-phone" to (gasp! shock!) *talk to* the recipient to let them
know, who can then complain to *their* mail provider about blocking mail
that shouldn't have been blocked.
Often you're not that lucky. I've wasted a fair bit of time going
around in circles on this from the sender's side:
Us: "We don't *know* exactly why this was rejected, you'll have to
contact the sender some other way and get them to check with their mail
provider."
Sender: "But your server sent it back to me! Fix it!"
Us: "We don't *know* exactly why this was rejected, you'll have to
contact the sender some other way and get them to check with their mail
provider."
Sender: "But your server sent it back to me! Fix it!"
(repeat until the concept gets through - some cases I'm trying to
repress memory of went more than five rounds of trying to find a new say
to say the same thing over and over AND OVER.)
We naturally ask to take a look at the original message if possible and
make some guesses as to what's getting up the recipient filter's nose...
but in the end they *are* just guesses, and sometimes even a mostly
blank test email also gets rejected.
-kgd
