Re: smail 3.1.29.1-22 append_header="..." problem

[Raul Miller <rdm@tad.micro.umn.edu>]

Martin Alonso Soto Jacome:
 > > Speaking of junk e-mail, I did some more work on my junkmail
 > > daemon today. junkmail is an autoresponder I wrote to "deal with"
 > > the ever-increasing amount of unsolicited commercial email I
 > > receive every day.  Instead of getting angry and writing a very
 > > nasty reply (usually starting off with F*** Off & Die), I just
 > > bounce it to user junkmail on my system, delete it and forget
 > > about it.

I think this is a bad move for the case where email return address is
forged and commercial email gives you an 800 number or some such.

Best workaround I've been able to think up for the general case is to
give people an md5-ish token based on their email address and some
local bits.  Set up an autoresponder to hand out tokens (so only
people with valid return addresses can get them) and bounce messages
through the autoresponder if they don't have a good token.

Unfortunately, this is more appropriate to mailing lists than personal
messages.  [Mailing list can remind user of their token in every
message -- X-Token: (or Token: if IANA approves).]

On the third hand, most of the spams I've examined recently have had
unforged return addresses.  And an argument could be made that use of
an forged return address by a commercial entity for advertising
purposes is false advertising (and thus subject to legal action).

-- 
Raul