Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Bouncing Spam... Does it help? What's your experience?

MMM-A · 04-23-2003, 02:40 PM

I've been experimenting with being aggressive with spam by bouncing emails back.

I'm not talking about BLOCKING email (which amounts to just filtering spam out before it gets in your inbox), but, rather BOUNCING: actively trying to send a message back to the spammer to fake that your email address is not valid.

Originally, I was using an old, no longer supported program called BSM found at: ftp://ftp.pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/files/Apr2002/BSM18.zip

Later I discovered a more current program at: http://www.mailwasher.net

After a month of paying attention to the job, it seems to be paying off. I've gone from 20 or 30 spams a day to 1, 2, or none.

Now that some of the virus scanner companies are offering spam management (bouncing), too, I expect more people are trying it.

So... the BIG question: Does it help? Not help? Please relate your experience so far.

(By the way, I've found that running my own SMTP server allows me to delete bounces that don't have valid email addresses without my ISP's email daemon bounces back to me.... I've been using inframail for years (www.infradig.com). It's free (the personal version), but I don't, necessarily recommend it because it's NOT for the novice. It'd take a sysadmin to set it up and maintain it. Search for a more user friendly program if you want to try this.)

04-23-2003, 02:40 PM	#1 (permalink)
MMM-A Upright	Bouncing Spam... Does it help? What's your experience? I've been experimenting with being aggressive with spam by bouncing emails back. I'm not talking about BLOCKING email (which amounts to just filtering spam out before it gets in your inbox), but, rather BOUNCING: actively trying to send a message back to the spammer to fake that your email address is not valid. Originally, I was using an old, no longer supported program called BSM found at: ftp://ftp.pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/files/Apr2002/BSM18.zip Later I discovered a more current program at: http://www.mailwasher.net After a month of paying attention to the job, it seems to be paying off. I've gone from 20 or 30 spams a day to 1, 2, or none. Now that some of the virus scanner companies are offering spam management (bouncing), too, I expect more people are trying it. So... the BIG question: Does it help? Not help? Please relate your experience so far. (By the way, I've found that running my own SMTP server allows me to delete bounces that don't have valid email addresses without my ISP's email daemon bounces back to me.... I've been using inframail for years (www.infradig.com). It's free (the personal version), but I don't, necessarily recommend it because it's NOT for the novice. It'd take a sysadmin to set it up and maintain it. Search for a more user friendly program if you want to try this.) Last edited by MMM-A; 04-23-2003 at 03:46 PM..