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

[John Crawley <john@bunsenlabs.org>]

On 27/06/2025 16:13, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 10:58:54AM +0900, John Crawley wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > I think "bouncing" is something that should really be done on a server, not by a user email agent, even a "good" one.
>
> Why do you think so?
>
> At least I gave a reason why bouncing from the MUA makes
> sense, and another for why it is almost never done from
> an MTA (probably what you call "server").
>
> > 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.
>
> You don't "bounce back to the server" (how could you do that?
> The server has no mail address). You send the bounce to
> <report-listspam@lists.debian.org>, as I stated elsewhere.
>
> That said, the difference between "bounce" and "resend" is
> probably minimal. I guess the spam filter training software
> will deal with both fine.

I may be wrong here but my understanding of "bounce" is that the software responsible for delivering a message (what I referred to as the "server") decides not to deliver it, and sends it back to the original address. So not something that an MUA can (or should be able to) do.

Wouldn't an attempt to "bounce" or possibly "resend" a message from an MUA need to be first accepted by the SMTP "server"? (What is the correct name for that?)

Is a message with Resent-* fields treated as being from the user or from the original sender?

BTW why does your message here have my email address as To:, and CC: to the list, even though I had no Reply-to: header in the message you are replying to?

--
John