I agree, it is best to have the secondary/scanning server know what 
accounts are real or not, but this isn't always practical to enforce.

Still, in the case that the secondary does attempt delivery to a 
non-existent account, as long as it's already decided that it's not a 
virus, the mailbox that it'll be sending the bounce message to is much 
less likely to be a forged, and valid, address... and this is what 
Spamcop is really trying to stop:  Bounce backs, predominately from 
virus' that forge the sender using a randomly chosen, but real, 
address.  Eliminate the virus, and you eliminate the majority of the 
problem.


Bill Healy wrote:

>But if there is a secondary or virus scanning only server that is a
>relay for another server it has no way of knowing which accounts are
>valid and it will accept all mail for handled domains. Then when the
>secondary MX or virus scanner tries to deliver the message to the
>primary mail server it will at that point find out if the mail is to a
>valid account. If it's not valid then the server trying to make the
>delivery will generate a bounce message back to the sender, that's the
>problem spamcop is trying to stop. 
>
>The load on my spam and virus scanning servers that front end for other
>mail servers has significantly decrease now that I verify who the mail
>is going to before any spam or virus scanning. I'm not using xmail as my
>front end server for scanning, I'm using a dedicated server with
>MailScanner http://www.mailscanner.info/ to scan for virus, spam,
>phishing, banned attachments, among other things before being passed on
>to the Exchange and xMail servers. 
>
>Bill
>
>  
>
>>Bill Healy wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>If so then maybe you should look into a filter that can validate
>>>delivery addresses before accepting a message.
>>>
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>I would think that just doing virus scanning in a post-data filter on 
>>the secondary MX should be enough to limit a good majority of 
>>misdirected bounces that would actually hit a live mailbox.  Perhaps SPF 
>>would catch much of the remainder?
>>
>>    
>>
>  
>

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