From: Guy Sherr (gsherr@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Apr 08 2008 - 18:26:10 ART
This is not the work of a jackass spammer. The work is more likely
the result of a bot-net doing the work of army for a jackass spammer.
Secondarily, the spam is actually being "returned" to the sender, who
presumably needs to change the address. I can think of a couple of
tweaks to smtp (that is, the protocol) which would put an end to this
practice, however, as it is now, there is no reasonable measurement
for deciding whether to automatically determine whether the mail
should be marked as spam.
The question really breaks on a spoof mechanism. When the smtp server
collects "your" return note, it should be given to you strictly
because it is, by definition, a message you "demanded" so you could
know whether your email got out.
Tweaks? The protocol could allow for a 'dead' addressee at the near
end (where this message is supposed to be coming from). If the
sender's email address maps to a mail exchanger, and the mail
exchanger's ip address is not the same as that of the machine
returning your email, then the notice goes in the garbage.
The problem is that means about 1,000,000,000 extra DNS lookups per day.
-- "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." -- Douglas Adams (author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu May 01 2008 - 08:25:50 ART