From: Dave Crocker <dhc2@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: John Leslie <john@xxxxxxx> Cc: Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch@xxxxxxxxx>; IETF Discussion <ietf@xxxxxxxx> Date: 27 February 2004 07:38 Subject: Re: Principles of Spam-abatement >John, > >>> If we can communicate the fact that a message is discarded because it >>> was categorized as spam back to the sender without adverse side > >unfortunately, that act of communication _is_ the adverse side >effect. it tells the spammer that yours is an active, responsive >email account. > So send it back from a different e-mail address, with headers which disguise its real origin. One reason why spam works is that it is so cheap to send 1M messages that even if 99.99% fail to reach a destination, the operation is still a success. If sending 1M messages got back a 1% response saying 'you failed' with no clue as to which 1% failed, we might cut down on the spam. Tom Petch >-- > Dave Crocker <dcrocker-at-brandenburg-dot-com> > Brandenburg InternetWorking <www.brandenburg.com> > Sunnyvale, CA USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>