Tom Petch <nwnetworks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > From: Dave Crocker <dhc2@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > >>>> 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. It is not obvious to me that there is any way to do that. Nothing in the (SMTP) envelope info is trustworthy except the IP address of the SMTP sender. Using _anything_ other than that IP address (which isn't even required to accept email at all) will likely generate _more_ "spam". Thus I'd like a Principle to the effect of: " Errors returned after the close of the SMTP transaction are likely " to go to (and confuse) an innocent party; thus such errors should " be deprecated for any email identified as spam. > 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. There may be a Principle there, about any "cost" imposed upon spammers tending to reduce the spam problem... -- John Leslie <john@xxxxxxx>