OT: Mailwasher - Bouncing?

[YK]

Priestes wrote:
[SNIP]

Has anyone taken into consideration that if they read their isp
terms and conditions that they are setting themselves up for
actually losing their isp due to bouncing violates most
mailservers terms and conditions, it ranks up with spamming, it
causes more loads on a server by bouncing???

Priestes

My ISP allows me to bounce messages.

If yours doesn't, perhaps you need to tell them to catch up with the
rest of us.

I'd say it's your ISP that needs to catch up. Bouncing messages just
adds to the problem.

So what should be done with mail that arrives at domain "x.y.z" for a
user "abc" who does not exist?

It bounces. It's RFC 2821 that covers this, or its supercedents.

Spammers who use generated mailing lists are going to cause bounces
anyway, so why shouldn't we do the same? As someone else pointed out,
if ISPs are hammered by (possibly invalid) failure to deliver
messages,
it _might_ cause them to do something about SPAM.

I guess if they liked the Hormel product SPAM they would not do anything!
http://www.spam.com/
http://www.spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm

Fighting abuse with abuse reduces you to the level of the spammer. Hope
you enjoy squigling around in the swill!

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in

I wonder if he's mistaking bounces from viruses?

No. See my previous reply,
<

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

So what should be done with mail that arrives at domain "x.y.z"
for a user "abc" who does not exist?

Depends. If it's legit mail, it should be bounced imo. If it's
spam, it should be dropped. Dropping all of it, spam or not, is
also a valid option.

It bounces.
Sometimes.

It's RFC 2821 that covers this, or its supercedents.

RFC 2821 says, "Servers MAY reject or bounce messages when they are
not deliverable when addressed." The people who write RFCs are very
careful about the words MAY and SHOULD and MUST, and they capitalize
them for clarity's sake.

Spammers who use generated mailing lists are going to cause
bounces anyway, so why shouldn't we do the same?

If you do, don't claim the RFCs are backing you up. They cover
bounces in the case of undeliverable mail, while you are advocating
faking bounce messages based on deliverable mail.

As someone else pointed out, if ISPs are hammered by (possibly
invalid) failure to deliver messages, it _might_ cause them to do
something about SPAM.

Adding to the problem to try to convince someone else to fix it is a
very poor idea. Following that line of thought, you might as well
grab a mass mailer app, find some open proxies and relays, and start
pumping out spam in order to give the ISPs the wake-up call you
think they need.

 

[George Bloomfeld]

Fighting abuse with abuse reduces you to the level of the spammer. Hope
you enjoy squigling around in the swill!

Look guys, bounce mail or do not, as you see fit. The option is right
there in Mailwasher. Just turn it off if you are affronted by it. This
asinine argument is on a par with complaining about TV programs that you
need not subject yourself to. To reject a fine program like Mailwasher
solely because it has a bounce option is, in my opinion, just plain
stupid. Almost as stupid, I might add, as stubbornly believing
“bandwidth” is a precious resource--like air or water, and thinking it
needs to be “preserved.”

GB
-save the rainforests: preserve bandwidth

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

Look guys, bounce mail or do not, as you see fit. The option is
right there in Mailwasher. Just turn it off if you are affronted
by it. This asinine argument is on a par with complaining about TV
programs that you need not subject yourself to. To reject a fine
program like Mailwasher solely because it has a bounce option is,
in my opinion, just plain stupid.

I don't think anyone has suggested abandoning Mailwasher, just
turning off the abusive 'fake bounce' feature.

Almost as stupid, I might add, as stubbornly believing "bandwidth"
is a precious resource--like air or water, and thinking it needs
to be "preserved."

Istm that backbone providers and ISPs don't have access to the faery
who gives out free equipment maintainance and upgrades to handle
bandwidth increases. Istm that their costs get passed down to
internet users. Perhaps you could explain more clearly how
stupid my point of view is.

 

[George Bloomfeld]

I don't think anyone has suggested abandoning Mailwasher, just
turning off the abusive 'fake bounce' feature.

Actually, they have. This topic comes up frequently in this newsgroup. Do
a Goggle search on it and you will see what I mean.

Istm that backbone providers and ISPs don't have access to the
faery who gives out free equipment maintainance and upgrades
to handle bandwidth increases.

That's the point. Faeries don't make the Internet infrastructure--people
do. As needs increase so does the infrastructure. It's simple supply-
demand economics. I'm surprised that I have to explain this. You need
more bandwidth, you build bigger pipes. That's exactly what's happening,
by the way. People think that the Internet *just growed" like Topsy. It
doesn't work that way.

Istm that their costs get passed down to internet users.

This will come as a shock: costs have come down not up. We can get DSL in
our area for $19.95 a month (Comcast). Other Internet costs are
comparably cheap including website hosting and the like. The reason
again: supply-demand economics.

Perhaps you could explain more clearly how stupid my point of
view is.

Well, ""Q"", I wasn't targeting you specifically, but as they say, *if
the shoe fits.* You might want to have a little look around to see how
the Internet really works. When people fall victims to their own opinions
without having the facts, it benefits no one.

I have mailwasher's bounce feature turned off, not because I'm sparing
the environment, or out of misguided sentiment for my ISP, but because
the vast majority of spam return addresses are bogus. It does have value
for getting off mailing lists or for sending messages to annoying pests
that you are no longer accepting mail from them. I also think that
bouncing a message to a person who didn't send it in the first place is
rude, so I wouldn't bounce by default. These, I think, are rational
reasons. But wasting bandwidth? That's just stupid. By that definition,
most of what's on the Internet is wasted bandwidth. Think about it.

GB

 

[George]

Look guys, bounce mail or do not, as you see fit. The option is right
there in Mailwasher. Just turn it off if you are affronted by it. This
asinine argument is on a par with complaining about TV programs that you
need not subject yourself to. To reject a fine program like Mailwasher
solely because it has a bounce option is, in my opinion, just plain
stupid. Almost as stupid, I might add, as stubbornly believing
“bandwidth” is a precious resource--like air or water, and thinking it
needs to be “preserved.”

I use Mailwasher all the time, but I switch the bounce feature off. I
don't think anyone in this thread suggested not using the program. It's
great.

 

[Terry]

Having seen mail servers get swamped and come to a stand still due to
mail bombs, surely if everyone was bouncing the spam it would increase
the strain on the server?

Of course

 

[Homer]

I've been using it on a Hotmail account and after about a week it cut down
the spam received from about 50 emails a day to about 5.

 

[Homer]

I've been using it on a Hotmail account and after about a week it cut down
the spam received from about 50 emails a day to about 5.

 

[George Bloomfeld]

Having seen mail servers get swamped and come to a stand still due to
mail bombs, surely if everyone was bouncing the spam it would increase
the strain on the server?

Mail bombs, chain bombs, and other denial-of-service attacks are vastly
different than bouncing spam using Mailwasher. And I am not in a position
to speculate whether *if everyone* was bouncing spam that would increase
server strain. If you have any verifiable figures to share, I'd love to
see them.

GB

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

Actually, they have. This topic comes up frequently in this
newsgroup. Do a Goggle search on it and you will see what I mean.

I've seen plenty people recommending not using Mailwasher, but not
over this issue. A Google search didn't turn up anything other than
people suggesting other ways to handle spam.

That's the point. Faeries don't make the Internet
infrastructure--people do. As needs increase so does the
infrastructure. It's simple supply- demand economics. I'm
surprised that I have to explain this. You need more bandwidth,
you build bigger pipes. That's exactly what's happening, by the
way. People think that the Internet *just growed" like Topsy. It
doesn't work that way.

You /didn't/ have to explain that. I am surprised that you thought
you did.

This will come as a shock: costs have come down not up. We can get
DSL in our area for $19.95 a month (Comcast). Other Internet costs
are comparably cheap including website hosting and the like. The
reason again: supply-demand economics.

Why do believe that would come as a shock to me?

Well, ""Q"", I wasn't targeting you specifically, but as they say,
*if the shoe fits.* You might want to have a little look around to
see how the Internet really works. When people fall victims to
their own opinions without having the facts, it benefits no one.

The stuff you have just posted does not address my argument. Thanks
for the condescension, though.

I have mailwasher's bounce feature turned off,

Thanks.

 

[John Fitzsimons]

On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 00:08:21 +0100, George

Having seen mail servers get swamped and come to a stand still due to
mail bombs, surely if everyone was bouncing the spam it would increase
the strain on the server?

"Selective" bouncing results in a reduction in future emails. Less
strain on the server(s).


Regards, John.

--
****************************************************
,-._|\ (A.C.F FAQ) http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.aspects.org.au/index.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/

 

[Mcubed]

All true, it's IMO the only bad thing about M/W, and should never be
used. Otherwise I love it - other progs, like mozilla have very good
filtering, but first you have to fetch the maik, which may be full of
graphics and html, delete it from your spam folder, and then delete it
from your trash folder - unless I've missed something

mike r

I've ended up not using Mailwasher anymore because of Mozilla's
filtering. I still have MW in case I think of some reason to go back to
it, but I haven't thought of one yet. The only advantage it offers over
Moz is the ability to delete the spam off the server, but I don't get why
that's a big deal. It was taking me more time to review the headers in
MW than it does just to download it and let Moz sort it out. Moz will
auto-delete anything in the junk folder after however long you specify,
so there's no 2-step delete it from the junk folder/delete it from the
trash folder necessary. Since I never actually look at the spam -- just
the headers, to make sure Moz didn't misidentify something as spam -- I'm
not sure why it matters that it may have graphics or HTML, unless you're
implying that it will take longer to download because of that. But
unless you're on dialup, that's not an issue. I just don't see what
Mailwasher gets you.

 

[Bumblebee]

X-No-Archive: yes

On 20 Aug 2003 00:04:00 GMT,"Mcubed" posted ...

I've ended up not using Mailwasher anymore because of Mozilla's
filtering. I still have MW in case I think of some reason to go back
to it, but I haven't thought of one yet. The only advantage it offers
over Moz is the ability to delete the spam off the server, but I don't
get why that's a big deal. It was taking me more time to review the
headers in MW than it does just to download it and let Moz sort it out.
Moz will auto-delete anything in the junk folder after however long
you specify, so there's no 2-step delete it from the junk folder/delete
it from the trash folder necessary. Since I never actually look at the
spam -- just the headers, to make sure Moz didn't misidentify something
as spam -- I'm not sure why it matters that it may have graphics or
HTML, unless you're implying that it will take longer to download
because of that. But unless you're on dialup, that's not an issue.
I just don't see what Mailwasher gets you.

I use Eudora for most of my email because I don't get any spam on email
accounts provided by my ISP, which I guess is due to me being very
selective with who gets to know those email addresses.

But I have 6 free and virtually throw away email addresses that attract
spam. Two with GMX.net, two with Hotmail and two with Yahoo.com which
MailWasher can also check because I use YahooPOPs!

Eudora has powerful filters and can check for email at both GMX & Yahoo
(using YahooPOPs!) but not Hotmail. MailWasher works mainly in the
background and doesn't interfere unless it has a problem and even then
it is unobtrusive.

 

[Priestes]

I've ended up not using Mailwasher anymore because of Mozilla's
filtering. I still have MW in case I think of some reason to go back to
it, but I haven't thought of one yet. The only advantage it offers over
Moz is the ability to delete the spam off the server, but I don't get why
that's a big deal. It was taking me more time to review the headers in
MW than it does just to download it and let Moz sort it out. Moz will
auto-delete anything in the junk folder after however long you specify,
so there's no 2-step delete it from the junk folder/delete it from the
trash folder necessary. Since I never actually look at the spam -- just
the headers, to make sure Moz didn't misidentify something as spam -- I'm
not sure why it matters that it may have graphics or HTML, unless you're
implying that it will take longer to download because of that. But
unless you're on dialup, that's not an issue. I just don't see what
Mailwasher gets you.

I use poptray inbetween my mail program and the server and dont have the
bounce feature but can delete from the server and use spampal which works
great for me... I think the mailwasher feature of bouncing should not be
used but just my opionion .... Opinions are like A******* everyone has one
<G>

 

[Shadow]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in


No. See my previous reply,
<

I understand that the vast majority of spam From addresses are fakes, so
bouncing is useless.
I am now receiving crap mail with my own address as the From address. I
guess I can fix that
by removing it from the Friends list.

S.

 

[mike ring]

I am now receiving crap mail with my own address as the From address. I
guess I can fix that
by removing it from the Friends list.

Guess so, or you can blacklist yourself (minus key while highlighted).

Just interested to know how you got your own address on your friends list.

I talk to myself quite a lot, but I hardly ever write to myself

mike r

 

[Psychomation]

I understand that the vast majority of spam From addresses are fakes, so
bouncing is useless.

I missed the earlier part of this but just a note that Mailwasher is an
excellent product EXCEPT for the bouncing bit which is a very bad thing and
totally ineffective and harmful. As you note, the addresses in spam are 99%
bogus. If any of you reading this are using MW, I strongly recommend making
sure you have all bouncing UNchecked and not use it unless for some reason
you are certain of the validity of the return address.

 

[ss_spa]

I missed the earlier part of this but just a note that Mailwasher is an
excellent product EXCEPT for the bouncing bit which is a very bad thing and
totally ineffective and harmful. As you note, the addresses in spam are 99%
bogus. If any of you reading this are using MW, I strongly recommend making
sure you have all bouncing UNchecked and not use it unless for some reason
you are certain of the validity of the return address.

Unfortunately, the author of the program doesn't believe there is a
problem with bouncing. It has more to do with marketing than reducing
spam.
Having said that.....I find the best time to use the bounce feature is
when those relatives/friends (and I use the term loosely for this
example) insist on sending multi-megabyte attachments unannounced,
that are "really funny".

tim