Comments on: I Hate Backscatter With a Passion http://www.moundalexis.com/tm/2007/08/16/i-hate-backscatter-with-a-passion/ Rants and musings, without care for substance. Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:06:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 By: Farewall Catch-All, I Will Miss You » Technology & MSG » Blog Archive http://www.moundalexis.com/tm/2007/08/16/i-hate-backscatter-with-a-passion/#comment-3423 Farewall Catch-All, I Will Miss You » Technology & MSG » Blog Archive Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:52:30 +0000 http://www.moundalexis.com/tm/2007/08/16/i-hate-backscatter-with-a-passion/#comment-3423 [...] Once in a while is fine but when a spammer goes and spoofs my domain name and sends out hundreds of thousands of spam messages, thousands of those are destined to fail and be returned to me. Rather than deal with the large scale backskatter again, I decided to kill my catch-all. I will miss it, but it took too damned long to sort through all of that mail. I’m pretty sure I deleted a handful of valid emails in the process. [...] [...] Once in a while is fine but when a spammer goes and spoofs my domain name and sends out hundreds of thousands of spam messages, thousands of those are destined to fail and be returned to me. Rather than deal with the large scale backskatter again, I decided to kill my catch-all. I will miss it, but it took too damned long to sort through all of that mail. I’m pretty sure I deleted a handful of valid emails in the process. [...]

]]> By: Alex http://www.moundalexis.com/tm/2007/08/16/i-hate-backscatter-with-a-passion/#comment-3414 Alex Wed, 22 Aug 2007 22:30:27 +0000 http://www.moundalexis.com/tm/2007/08/16/i-hate-backscatter-with-a-passion/#comment-3414 mokiejovis: I need to analyze a few batch of mail logs to figure out what's current and what isn't, but I think that is what I'll end up doing. I did get my tertiary mail host to implement greylisting this weekend though... not related to my backscatter problem, but a step in the right direction. mokiejovis: I need to analyze a few batch of mail logs to figure out what’s current and what isn’t, but I think that is what I’ll end up doing. I did get my tertiary mail host to implement greylisting this weekend though… not related to my backscatter problem, but a step in the right direction.

]]> By: mokiejovis http://www.moundalexis.com/tm/2007/08/16/i-hate-backscatter-with-a-passion/#comment-3318 mokiejovis Fri, 17 Aug 2007 15:20:24 +0000 http://www.moundalexis.com/tm/2007/08/16/i-hate-backscatter-with-a-passion/#comment-3318 The catchall needs to be ditched. As long as you use the standard array of standard email addresses which work (postmaster, abuse, mailer-daemon) and your administrative contact on your whois record actually resolves to a real email address, you've done a good enough job. Beyond that, accounts like sales, info, accounts, etc, all are big defacto spam-holes for every domain, so pitching them if you don't actually use them should work. I do the same thing with "vanity" email addresses. Sometimes I fill out the little form and make a mental note to make a new .qmail file to support the new email address. I think I have 30 or 40 .qmail files, all for different services I use, so I can just route unwanted email right into /dev/null if the address gets sold. The catchall needs to be ditched. As long as you use the standard array of standard email addresses which work (postmaster, abuse, mailer-daemon) and your administrative contact on your whois record actually resolves to a real email address, you’ve done a good enough job. Beyond that, accounts like sales, info, accounts, etc, all are big defacto spam-holes for every domain, so pitching them if you don’t actually use them should work.

I do the same thing with “vanity” email addresses. Sometimes I fill out the little form and make a mental note to make a new .qmail file to support the new email address. I think I have 30 or 40 .qmail files, all for different services I use, so I can just route unwanted email right into /dev/null if the address gets sold.

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