[nflug] Forged mail header bounces up exponentially

[D. Joe]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 06:51:15PM -0400, Cyber Source wrote:
> Aside from setting up filters, it's going to be hard because
> they are in a sense legitimate emails.

In what sense is sending spam to otherwise uninvolved third
parties legitimate?

People who configure their MTAs to do this are part of the
problem.  They aren't in any sense bouncing the email as they
receive it, otherwise the bounces would go back to the sender
during the initial SMTP session.  Rather, what these MTAs are
doing are forwarding some message based on the incoming spam to
the forged address, trusting the address sent to them by the
spammer--at best a naive approach, at worst, complicit in
spreading the damage.

They deserve to be corrected when they listen to folks who want
to help them correct their systems behavior, as with Darin's
exemplary approach

 http://www.nflug.org/pipermail/nflug/2008-April/027528.html

but deserve to be excoriated and excluded when they don't. 

-- 
D. Joe