Re: Please, don't reply to spam -- much less on list [was: ግěcůžላኣዝዩ]

[John Crawley <john@bunsenlabs.org>]

On 26/06/2025 01:00, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 03:18:05PM -0000, Greg wrote:
> > On 2025-06-24, Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> wrote:
> > > > This like sounds like good and important advice, but how do you "bounce the
> > > > original message"?
> > >
> > > By using the "bounce" feature of your MUA.  Only good ones have it.
> > >
> > > > Does that mean forward the message to the  report-listspam?
> > >
> > > No.  Forwarding and bouncing are different operations.
> >
> > One problem for the casual user is that there's bouncing and then
> > there's bouncing. For most us, bouncing means that the mail server
> > rejects the email.
>
> Yep. That's where the name comes from. It sends the mail back, with
> as much intact info as possible to allow the mail admin to debug the
> situation. Bouncing from the MUA does technically the same, so the
> same name is appropriate.
>
> > https://www.activecampaign.com/glossary/bounced-email
> >
> > For those in the know like you, it means redirecting the email
> > anonymously to another recipient.
> >
> > I'm familiar with the latter as an Alpine user, BTW.

I think "bouncing" is something that should really be done on a server, not by a user email agent, even a "good" one.

Even so, "resend" is often available, either built-in or as a plugin, using the "Resent*" fields:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.6

The Debian Wiki has these suggestions for how to deal with spam:
https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ListMaster/ListArchiveSpam#nominate
and
https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ListMaster/FAQ#The_lists_are_spam-laden.2C_I_want_to_help_you

So it looks as if resending a spam message to report-listspam@lists.debian.org is OK, although "bouncing" the message back to the server is very much not, even if your MUA can do that.

--
John