Date:         Fri, 8 Nov 2002 18:15:14 -0500
Reply-To:     David Brodbeck <gull@CYBERSPACE.ORG>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Brodbeck <gull@CYBERSPACE.ORG>
Subject:      Re: Spamish Inquisition
Comments: To: westydriver <westydriver@TACTICAL-BUS.INFO>
In-Reply-To:  <DC787E9B-F351-11D6-865D-000393BA6216@tactical-bus.info>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Fri, 8 Nov 2002, westydriver wrote:

> i have the advantage of domains that i control so i have set up email
> address just for the two lists that i subscribe to.  my main domain
> gets mail  for postmaster, webmaster, and the registered email address
> for the domain and all go to the trash.  all the spam has faked email
> addresses so it just comes back when bounced.  however so  much of it
> lately has been hotmail so i have set up a return mail bounce that
> bounces all of those to hotmail abuse three times.  they are getting an
> average of 20 to 25 bounces a day from me  now.

I've almost never seen spam that was really from hotmail.  Usually the To:
address is forged to make it look like it came from there.

Real Hotmail mail has a line somewhere in the header that starts with:

X-Originating-IP:

giving the IP address of the person who sent it.  Anything without this
line is forged and didn't come from Hotmail.  You can actually use this to
your advantage.  I summarily drop any mail with a hotmail.com return
address that doesn't have this header, because it's always spam.  (No
point in bouncing it -- you know the return address is bad anyway.)

Please don't flood abuse addresses with mail that had nothing to do with
their system.  It makes them more inclined to direct all that mail to the
trash, which causes problems when there really is an abuse issue.

             _ _
  __ _ _   _| | |  | David M. Brodbeck (N8SRE)              Ypsilanti, MI
 / _` | | | | | |  +-----------------------------------------------------
| (_| | |_| | | | @ cyberspace.org
 \__, |\__,_|_|_| "Only the government would call one half cup a
 |___/             reasonable serving of ice cream." -- Consumer Reports