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Clueless admins and "backscatter"


mrmaxx

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I have a couple admins I have repeatedly reported backscatter bounces to. Their reply:

Hello SpamCop user,

This e-mail is not spam but bounce on forged sender.

Our email server has just replied to a spoofed email

If you need more information, please contact us.

Regards,

Abuse Staff

http://www.supereva.it/

http://www.dada.net/

Any suggestions on how to educate them that what they are doing is just as bad as spamming? I've tried sending them a link to the SC faq on this, but they have just ignored it. Can I nominate them for "RFC-Ignorant" status or what?

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I have a couple admins I have repeatedly reported backscatter bounces to. Their reply:

Any suggestions on how to educate them that what they are doing is just as bad as spamming? I've tried sending them a link to the SC faq on this, but they have just ignored it. Can I nominate them for "RFC-Ignorant" status or what?

33085[/snapback]

...AIUI, bouncing (even to a forged sender) is in compliance with an RFC, so I doubt reporting them for RFC-ignorant is appropriate (unless there's somewhere to report RFCs that are ignorant of the current state of the internet :) <g>). My suggestion would be to just keep reporting the misdirected bounces to SpamCop.
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...AIUI, bouncing (even to a forged sender) is in compliance with an RFC, so I doubt reporting them for RFC-ignorant is appropriate (unless there's somewhere to report RFCs that are ignorant of the current state of the internet :) <g>).  My suggestion would be to just keep reporting the misdirected bounces to SpamCop.

33091[/snapback]

Bummer... I was afraid of that...

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  • 1 month later...

Unfortunately, the sending of traditional auto-responses, misdirected bounces, and challenges is not yet a violation of any RFC, but it is grounds for listing by the SCBL, and (as I learned via SBL33313) by the SBL.

I usually write that misdirected bounces are now considered abusive and reportable by SpamCop per the "Messages which may be reported" section of "On what type of email should I (not) use SpamCop?" at http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/14.html and the "Misdirected bounces" section of "Why are auto-responders (and delayed bounces) bad?" at http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/329.html#bounces .

You might also want to quote from Backscatter from spam firewalls and anti-virus systems:

So-called "spam firewalls," software running in front of production servers to process out spam and viruses, can be a problem for other networks if they simply deflect the spam on to other mailboxes. Most spam and all mail-borne viruses use a forged Sender address, and bouncing it back to that address only results in sending unwanted and burdensome mail to innocent third parties. Either reject the SMTP connection with a 5xy message, silently discard it (your firewall identified it as spam, remember?), or file it in a quarantine area for *your* users to glean. Don't make it someone else's responsibility when they are almost certainly not involved.
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