Re: Kind reminder: please don't reply to and/or quote spam, ever

[David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk>]

On Tue 21 Apr 2020 at 09:01:35 (+0200), tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 04:15:00PM -0500, David Wright wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > > If I receive spam and wish to report it to my ISP, I BOUNCE the
> > > message, so as not to disturb the "evidence" or "scene of the crime".
> > 
> > I remain unconvinced. If you forward an email as an attachment, then
> > its containment in the attachment protects it from modification.
> > OTOH if you bounce it, the header that you received can be modified,
> > and have lines added in the normal course of transit through MTAs.
> 
> They are easy to sort out automatically. Unless some agent in transit
> intentionally munges them, but then, any mail could -- unless it's
> signed. So what?

You snipped this:

> > > […] BOUNCING or REDIRECTION relays a message in the
> > > most pristine form available, preserving the header […]"

Obviously we differ over the interpretation of "pristine", "preserve"
and "disturb".

> > In addition, if the original email contained a malicious gotcha, you
> > expose the recipient of the bounced email to the same risk that you
> > presumably have just avoided.
> 
> Mail? Malicious? Gothcha? You gotta have the wrong MUA ;-)

No, I avoided the risks by running a good MUA (mutt by then, and before
that, Pine on Unix, VAXmail and Phoenix/MVS). The main hazard at that
time was still, I believe, viruses that would infect Windows systems,
which most people ran on their desktops. The abuse-reporting account
was probably run on a Unix box—I never checked.

Most of the support staff were unaware that I was a maverick running
linux on my desktop and around the labs. They would get somewhat
neurotic about people sending or receiving infected emails, and were
much happier receiving versions attached, with a covering message.

Cheers,
David.