yourbuddy Posted February 15, 2004 Share Posted February 15, 2004 According to Spamhaus, the definition of spam is BOTH Unsolicited and Bulk. Just sending an Unsolicited AV response would (therefore) not be spam email. Quoted from Spamhaus: A message is spam only if it is both Unsolicited and Bulk. Unsolicited Email is normal email (examples include first contact enquiries, job enquiries, sales enquiries, etc.) Bulk Email is normal email (examples include subscriber newsletters, discussion lists, information lists, etc.). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff G. Posted February 15, 2004 Share Posted February 15, 2004 Most of these virus filtering notifications are commercial, promoting the virus filtering software and its manufacturer/developer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yourbuddy Posted February 16, 2004 Author Share Posted February 16, 2004 Commercial email is spam?? Oh my ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 You know, I'm not going to pretend to be conversant with the letter of the RFC's. But, "end user anecdotally" speaking, if a server is spewing thousands of virus bounces to wrong addresses, that's bulk and unsolicited. And it remains a problem that cannot be defined away. It may be possible to deal with programmatically. Or, at least, I suggest that it may be. Your contention, yourbuddy, seems to be that if we define it away as a non-problem then we don't have to deal with it, right? I'm sure that can't be your intention, since we're still inundated with the stuff after we've neatly defined it as non-spam. Got an RFC for fixing this? Anybody? Seriously, if there is perhaps it would inform the search for a solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yourbuddy Posted February 16, 2004 Author Share Posted February 16, 2004 "if a server is spewing thousands of virus bounces to wrong addresses, that's bulk and unsolicited." Yes, agreed (for email, but not for bounces). The problem (cause) is the spammer, not the bounce. Get the crooks, not the (ignorant or innocent) bystanders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bumpkin Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 Most of these virus filtering notifications are commercial, promoting the virus filtering software and its manufacturer/developer. Possible solution? We are getting so many of these piece of crap e-mails (300+ a day at the peak of MyDoom) from every single AV program I've heard of, and some I haven't, that we are considering blocking the servers that they come from. With the block we would also be bouncing the e-mail back to the originating "anti-virus" sender as well as the AV company, notifying them that they have been blocked because of the bulk, commercial e-mail they insist on sending. If they're going to configure their servers this way, they should deal with the consequences of sending spam. We should be allowed to submit these e-mails as spam because that's simply what they are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yourbuddy Posted February 16, 2004 Author Share Posted February 16, 2004 With the block we would also be bouncing the e-mail back to the originating "anti-virus" sender as well as the AV company, notifying them that they have been blocked because of the bulk, commercial e-mail they insist on sending. Then (by your own definition), you would be sending spam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bumpkin Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 With the block we would also be bouncing the e-mail back to the originating "anti-virus" sender as well as the AV company, notifying them that they have been blocked because of the bulk, commercial e-mail they insist on sending. Then (by your own definition), you would be sending spam. If using my own definition, we would not be sending commercial e-mail. It could possibly be considered bulk if the replies went back to the same server time and time again. However, these are coming from dozens of different servers and dozens of different AV companies. It's either fight back or sit here with a jar of vaseline and wait to get screwed. I'd rather these so-called "sysadmins" would learn to properly take care of their mail servers instead of taking the easy "default" way out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Betsy Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 An abuse desk solicits reports about abuse. A true rejection is shorthand for "there is something wrong about this email." Neither can be called spam if it is going to the appropriate person - the actual sender of the email. If the sender of a stupid email gets overwhelming numbers of rejects or reports, that's because he has sent out an overwhelming number of stupid emails. A polite person always mentions those actions that are causing hir inconvenience if s/he thinks that the person causing the action would like to know. And in an optimistic view of the world, one always assumes that no one would /deliberately/ annoy or inconvenience another. All that is needed is to point out the problem. In rare cases, there may be extenuating circumstances, which, naturally, will be pointed out. In a friendly, polite society conflicts of needs are negotiated. Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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