[SpamCop-List] Re: Delete or bounce overflow account?

[Steven Maesslein]

On Mon, 5 Jul 2004 00:22:57 -0400, BarkerJr coughed into spamcop and
left this in <rm1nr1-b0g.ln1 at gecko.LAN>:

> Did I say bounce back to the from?  No, I think he's refering to bouncing back
> to the actual sender.  You know, a 500 bounce.

That's not a bounce at all, that's a reject.

Bounce != Reject

Bounce:
MTA accepts the inbound mail only to find it can't be delivered. MTA 
therefore generates a DSN saying that the mail couldn't be delivered and 
shoots it off to the address in the SMTP envelope "from" (often inserted 
in the "Return-Path:" header).

Reject:
MTA realises that the mail won't be deliverable *BEFORE* accepting it. 
MTA therefore says "I don't want this" instead of "Mail accepted" and 
the delivery is aborted right there and then. Dealing with the mail 
becomes the upstream MTA's problem.

Bounce == abuse of the Internet because of the overwhelming proportion 
of mail sent "from" forged addresses.

Reject == The Right Thing (tm)

You used the word "bounce", not "reject". Therefore, anyone here who 
knows the difference between "bounce" and "reject" is going to think 
you're advocating abuse of the Internet by suggesting that undeliverable 
mail be force-fed to the unsuspecting netizens whose e-mail addresses 
were forged into the spam.

-- 
Steve