Should i Bounce Spam?

[old grizzly]

I use Mailwasher Pro and i have been using the "bounce" feature, but i have been told more than once that using this feature is in itself identifying me so dont use it (the bounce feature) What are peoples ideas on this please. TIA Len

[Guest LilBambi]

old grizzly --That is a good question.I had heard 'responding' or 'requesting to be removed' was the real issue, and that bouncing just says it didn't get to its destination...so it would appear that your email address just doesn't work.I too would love to know for sure on this ... because if bouncing is the same as 'responding' or 'requesting to be removed', I will remove all my 'block sender' filtering right now

[muckshifter]

The "bounce" feature, sends an unwanted message back to the sender — via your Internet service provider's postmaster — stating that your e-mail address couldn't be found. To the initial sender, this response is indistinguishable from the reply it would receive for an invalid e-mail address.

[Guest LilBambi]

muckshifter --Whew! Thanks ... that's what I thought but was beginning to wonder

[Ugly]

I'd be happy to post a free working beta of Mailwasher, but there seems no way to post a reply with attachments??

[Arena2045]

Off Topic:Hello Ugly,Before anything is said, Scot's community is no way finished; he is still working on various sections, rules/guidelines, and possible options for users.Right now the option to add attachments is disabled. There is a long running topic regarding attachments : HERE & HEREThere are some obvious reasons why the attachments options are turned off for the moment...1) Scot is investigating if a limit can be established so that only images (Screen Shots) can be posted for technical support purposes.2) The possibility of users posting (Non-PUBLIC/leaked) alpha/beta software.3) The possibility of users posting cracks/hacks/warez/etc...4) The possibility of users posting copyrighted material when they do not have authority to do so.5) The possibility that an uploaded file is either, purposely or mistakenly infected with a virus.Etc...Rest assured that Scot and the entire Moderation Crew are working on the wording of a solid set of Forum Rules; and possibly at Scot's discretion, file uploads may be permitted in the future.If the beta you mention is public, I would suggest providing a link to a site to download it, or offer users who contact you (email or PM) the file (again if it’s a public beta).

[Guest ThunderRiver]

I would normally not take that chance to reply as if the email address doesn't exist.You reply == your email address is alive => more spam...

[Guest ThunderRiver]

One more note,I don't really think replying is effective. Most of the time, those spamers use phony email address, so if you reply, it will be bounced back anyway. Also, most spam have this 1k image web bug, which automatically marks your email address as active the moment that you open the email. I know for sure that Microsoft Outlook 2003 Beta is now able to block Web Bug, but it doesn't know which image from the Internet to be displayed. So it is kind like an one way street..you either turn that feature on or off..

[cwbrowne]

I use Mailwasher Pro also, and I did have the free version of Mailwasher, and I also use Norton Anti-virus 2003. My question is: Why on both versions of Mailwasher whenever I did bounce something - I don't any longer unless I'm really teed off - why would NAV scanning outgoing mail appear and sometimes it wouldn't?I mean the message is being bounced from the server level isn't it? Maybe not, since the message does appear in the Mailwasher program?

[Guest ThunderRiver]

I use Mailwasher Pro also, and I did have the free version of Mailwasher, and I also use Norton Anti-virus 2003. My question is:  Why on both versions of Mailwasher whenever I did bounce something - I don't any longer unless I'm really teed off -  why would NAV scanning outgoing mail appear and sometimes it wouldn't?I mean the message is being bounced from the server level isn't it? Maybe not, since the message does appear in the Mailwasher program?

I am confused with your questions? From the way it works, MailWasher bounces mails from your machine, and it auto generates error message to the sender. Perhaps, I am wrong, but I don't think it is server to server because your email address does exist

[cwbrowne]

I am confused with your questions? From the way it works, MailWasher bounces mails from your machine, and it auto generates error message to the sender. Perhaps, I am wrong, but I don't think it is server to server because your email address does exist

Sorry if my question wasn't stated clearly. Really I was trying to ask the question that since Mailwasher 'checks' the message at the server level but leaves it there, I couldn't understand why NAV would scan a 'Bounced' message. You obviously are correct in stating that the message is being generated from the bouncers machine and that Mailwasher is auto-generating an error message. But most importantly for me I couldn't understand, and do not understand, why NAV would sometimes scan a 'Bounced' message but other times NOT scan a 'Bounced' message.It seems to me that what is taking place is, if the 'Bounce' command was as a result of being on a 'DNS Blacklist Server List' then NAV would NOT scan the bounced message.But if the 'Bounce' was as a result of me checking the 'Bounce' box for the message then NAV would scan the outgoing message. So the question is, why the difference?Maybe this doesn't happen with other anti-virus programs, maybe no one else has noticed this with NAV. But understanding what is taking place in a bounce could help others decide on whether to bounce or not to bounce.That is the question.

[muckshifter]

The bounce feature sends a bounce message to the sender, telling him 'sorry there's no such user here'. the only thing the spammer knows is that his message reached a mail server (which is no big secret), but a non-existent mailbox. exactly what he would see if he sent the message to a really non-existent mailbox.I like mailwasher because of the ability to safely preview unknown messages without acticating any hidden code or links that tell the sender the message was viewed, filter out the junk, blacklist crap, delete crap with one click, and get only the desired mail in my actual inboxes.I to have NAV (2003) but have never seen it check any 'bounced' mail.The correct way to use MailWasher is to keep it minimized in the system tray. At the same time, your ISP mail program (outlook Express, etc....) is to be kept closed. When you receive mail, the icon will change and a sound can be heard. open up (maximize) MailWasher. Analyse your mail by using checkmarks if needed to bounce mail and delete it. Add mail received to your Friends list or your Blacklist if needed. Then press Process Mail. This will open up your Outlook Express (or whatever) mail program, which in turn will download the mail onto your computer to view. Any mail that is checked off to be bounced and deleted, will not be downloaded into your mail program. It will be sent back as undeliverable.

[Freddy]

Is there any evidence to suggest that the bouncing emails back reduces the amount of spam you get in the future? I mean, do spammers really bother to remove bounced address from their lists, since it is already a very cheap method of advertising. As for services selling lists, they don't benefit from reducing the addresses on their rolls.

[muckshifter]

Good question Freddy, but if their “inbox†is full of bounced emails they may have to delete a few thousand to see the few poor suckers they’ve caught out.

[Guest ThunderRiver]

The bounce feature sends a bounce message to the sender, telling him 'sorry there's no such user here'. the only thing the spammer knows is that his message reached a mail server (which is no big secret), but a non-existent mailbox. exactly what he would see if he sent the message to a really non-existent mailbox.

Not entirely true. If the email is in HTML, and that has embeded web bug, and if you open it, spammer would know your email address is alive.

[Bruno]

I like mailwasher and I really think it works fine to bounce messages. I wish they had the same program for Linux

[Guest ThunderRiver]

Does WINE work with MailWasher?

[labyrinth]

....

[labyrinth]

Not entirely true. If the email is in HTML, and that has embeded web bug, and if you open it, spammer would know your email address is alive.

When useing Mailwasher properly, you don't open E-mail to bounce it.

[enigma-2]

In most cases respnding is probably worthless as most spammers either use faked headers or come-and-go return addresses (in either case the message is bounced back to a dead address.) These pricks are full aware of ALL the anti-spam methods, and just get around them by hitting every address in a subnet. Lists, unless thet are fully verified and of ingle purpose are out of date by the time they are complied and not really of much value to them. Far simpler to just send to every address on a host and not worry if they get delivered or not.I turned this feature off. (BTW, you can set Mailwasher to bounce directly from the spammers Postoffice, if that's any consideration.)Someone else mentioned something about web bugs, you can block these with AdSubstract and other simular programs, also need to remember that some HTML Email uses remote windows that snag your Email address during the load and recall (those colorful ads and banners are actually remote web pages, and THEY can track you better than the Email!) As soon as you open the Email, pop day gots yu address.My Mailwasher blacklist is quite long now, I generally get between 100-200 Emails a day and about 1/2 or premarked on the "blacklist." So as soon as the mail headers are loaded, I hit "Process Mail" and 1/2 th ejunk is wiped out. (It's much faster to delete the mail headers rather than download all the mail, attachments, HTML, etc. and then delete them.Now there is a NEW method of 100% spam kill that some people are using. Guranteeeeed 100% no spam!It's called "whitelist". Same as using Mailwasher's blacklist feature, rather you develope a "whitelist" of known address you will receive from and drop the remainder. Works 100% if you have a specific clientiel (we do) and never have to worry about spam again. (So who use this mark all remaining Email as Blacklisted and then review to ... just to make sure. (We actually use this method, but could easily get by without it.)

[Guest LilBambi]

This 'whitelist' wouldn't be the one one where you are required to pay money to ensure you are a good guy and shouldn't be on the blacklist?

[davidnnc]

Good question Freddy, but if their “inbox†is full of bounced emails they may have to delete a few thousand to see the few poor suckers they’ve caught out.

Unfortunately they probably will never see those bounced emails because they virtually never use their real return address. It's either a bogus address or one that they stole from someone else. If it's bogus then the bounce doesn't go anywhere. If it's stolen then the innocent person who email address was used gets inundated with bounced mail notices.That's why most spammers send you to a web site. They don't want to correspond with you through email.Bouncing to a true spammer usually does no good.

[Guest LilBambi]

Since I use OE ... I use the block sender feature ... which deletes the current email you have chosen to block and will keep any future emails out of your email box and if I understand correctly bounces the message as well.The real benefit is I never see an email from that spammer again

[ikara]

Sorry if my question wasn't stated clearly. Really I was trying to ask the question that since Mailwasher 'checks' the message at the server level but leaves it there,

I am confused with your questions? From the way it works, MailWasher bounces mails from your machine, and it auto generates error message to the sender. Perhaps, I am wrong, but I don't think it is server to server because your email address does exist

Now I am confused to, If Mailwasher does not open the e-mail but only downloads the headers from the server then surely the sender would not get any indication that his spam has arrived at a legitimate address, then the bounce message should give him the same indication he would get if he sent it to an invalid address. If Mailwasher doesn't work this way, then maybe it is not doing anybody much good. I would like to know the facts if anybody knows them please post. Thanks

[Guest ComputerBob]

Now I am confused to, If Mailwasher does not open the e-mail but only downloads the headers from the server then surely the sender would not get any indication that his spam has arrived at a legitimate address, then the bounce message should give him the same indication he would get if he sent it to an invalid address.

LilBambi recently posted a message about this in a different thread, in which she quoted some information from the MailWasher Web site. MailWasher does bounce messages the way you thought/hoped it would.

[Guest LilBambi]

ComputerBob --Good point ... Think I will put this MailWasher one here too ... think it was supposed to be here anyway! ---Think this page of the Mailwasher Tutorial site might be of help on what they do when they bounce a message:http://www.mailwasher.net/tutorial.php?s=8On the Tutorial page, there is a link on bouncing email in their FAQ, info quoted below:

Bouncing messagesQ.        How does MailWasher bounce messages? A.        MailWasher uses an algorithm to determine the best route to send the bounced message back (from, reply to, return path) and actually sends the bounce back via your ISP's postmaster, so it looks exactly like it has come from your ISP and not from you at your address. If the spammer has used a fake address, then your bounce message will itself be bounced back to the postmaster and you won't receive the bounced bounce email. Q.        What does the bounced message look like? A.        Send yourself an email, then bounce it. The message will be bounced back to the sender and they will receive an email similar to a returned mail message you would receive if you sent an email to a wrong address.Q.        Will the spammers know I am bouncing emails? A.        No, the bounced messages look exactly like a returned mail message you would receive if you sent an email off to a wrong address. There is no way the spammers can tell it is not genuine.Q.        Why do I get my bounced message back? A.        This may be because of two things.1. When MailWasher sends a bounce email, it sends it via the postmaster of your internet service provider so it looks exactly like it is a genuine bounced email. If the message that you are trying to bounce has a false return address then you will receive a non deliverable bounced email which will further clutter your inbox - this is because you own your own domain and all the mail is fed in to that domain. This doesn't happen if you have an address from a internet service provider - they get the non deliverable bounced email back to their inbox. To stop the non deliverable emails coming back in to your inbox, enter the address MAILER-DAEMON@mydomain.com in the blacklist and set it to auto delete. (where mydomain.com is actually the domain you own)Some ISP's may modify all the emails sent so that they contain the real email address in both the 'from' field and 'reply-to' field. There is nothing much we can do about this as this as we can't control it, we would suggest you not use the bounce feature in this case.

[badcat]

Arena2045,Thanks for explaining that to us, it makes good sense from the administration standpoint.Chris

[ikara]

Good point ... Think I will put this MailWasher one here too ... think it was supposed to be here anyway!

Thanks for that I was beginning to think that some people were having a different experience than MailWasher described.I'm glad that they are amongst those that appear to descibe their software correctly.Thanks

[Guest LilBambi]

You're welcome Ikara

[Cluttermagnet]

Just as telephone salespeople have totally ruined the telephone as a communications medium, so too are they now ruining internet email. Remember when you were a kid and the phone rang? Everyone jumped to their feet to answer. We sometimes fought siblings for the honor of picking up that handset and saying "Hello?" Today if we were to do that, we would feel like suckers- picture the sergeant in the first "Police Academy" movie who falls for the megaphone gag- puts it up to his face and a ring of shoe polish gets left around his mouth. It's a much more cynical world now, and spammers have also pretty much destroyed the email experience for a lot of folks as well. So it is with fiendish glee that I sometimes bounce spam back to its senders using Mailwasher. Oh, BTW the telephone spammers are still 'winning', though they meet an inpenetrable wall of answering machine and caller ID and they never get through to me. But they still get in that last jab sometimes by leaving those oh-so-friendly, chatty, machine-generated messages about how sorry they are that they missed me and what an oh-so-wonderful opportunity they have for me. It still costs me a few seconds to hear the pitch and hit the erase button. And it costs them no time at all. It's just a stupid robot in a 'boiler room' somewhere, dialing its little heart out. I feel sorry for folks who are still running cassette tape answering machines. They have to listen to this unwanted junk much longer while reviewing their messages. Oh joy.Trouble is, most of those messages come from throwaway free email accounts, or from hijacked accounts, or from 'evil' domains run by mega-spammers with their own T1 lines. Even their send times are often forged or inaccurate, for a variety of reasons. So how much sense does it really make to send even a cleverly forged bounce message back to these turkeys? I figure that once in a while, I actually cause some spammer some small amount of inconvenience. I certainly hope so. But these cynical b***ds know the game a lot better than you or me, and some of them actually do make good money torturing the rest of us. Yup- there are just enough fools who will actually respond positively to UCE and buy the product or service and keep the whole sick game going. If absolutely everybody, everywhere _never_ responded positively to a single spam email, the entire problem would disappear in a matter of months. Or days. Not likely, mate. P.T. Barnum was right! (...a sucker born every minute)On a few rare occasions, I got at least a faint impression that I may have fooled a newbie unsophisticated spammer, due to seeing identical resends- a sort of exploratory/ confirmatory probe, some varying time later. All this usually takes place in the wee hours when only spammers and career insomniacs like me are usually up and about. And of course I gleefully slam them back with another Mailwasher bounce. These few are probably the poor souls who respond to pyramid schemes, work from home scams, etc. and become rookie spammers themselves. I have sent bounces to myself- they do look quite convincing although they do not come from your ISP- they are generated by your software. But how many spammers are going to be fooled if the bounce is generated 4 or 6 or 8 hours after they sent their emails? Aw heck, I sometimes send it anyway, just on general principles. I doubt many are getting fooled at the spammer's end, however. Worst case, that timing disparity may tip them off just as sure as opening an email with a hidden web bug graphic. This makes things worse, not better. But they don't care. Since someone else is paying for the bandwidth they chew up, the can even afford to mount alphabet attacks on domains- send to a@blah, b@blah, z@blah, aa@blah, zz@ blah, aaa@blah. You get the idea. They are not all mailing from purchased spam address lists of 'hot prospects'. They can mount literally millions of attacks in a fairly short time, and some of them will happen to be valid email addresses- and these guys didn't pay a penny for any sucker list. I get these kinds too because I chose short email IDs.See: "Why Am I Getting All This Spam",http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtmlThese folks use a corrupt, dishonest business model. They hijack resources belonging to others that they don't pay for, hiding behind bogus free speech defenses if cornered. Not likely they will ever be forced to pay the actual costs that their torrents of garbage incur. There is enough money involved that they should be able to buy enough political influence and legal representation to stay in business. Oh joy...