[SpamCop-List] Re: I am getting more messages from this .pk server about listserver messages I can do nothing about.

[Mike Easter]

Geoffrey Hyde wrote:
> "Mike Easter"
>> Geoffrey Hyde wrote:
>>> This is to me a spam email, as there
>>> is NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING that I can do about it.
>>
>> What you should do is use an invalid addy in your postings to that
>> group or newsserver.  Which I said back then.
>
> Which would do nothing but infuriate some poor random user somewhere
> who does get my message due to the server not figuring out who it
> should go to.

Your message is going to appear on the newsserver and the webforum and
the mailing list.  What do you mean 'get my message not figuring out who
it should go to'?  The mailing list recipients are those who sign up for
lugnet.robotics.  If this scenario unfolds in which a mailing list
recipient's mailbox server wants to belatedly bounce to a From, the
belated bounce would be emailed to an invalid addy, which goes nowhere.

>The worst case scenario is that nobody gets it and
> nobody does anything about it and it just fills up some mailbox
> somewhere until a human administrator examines it and determines it
> was my munged from address that filled the mailbox up in the first
> place, so cancels my account.

That scenario doesn't work at all.  And antispam mungeing is expected
and normal behavior -- antispam mungeing of a From doesn't cause you
adverse effects.

> I don't need unexpected account cancellations thank you very much, Mr.
> Easter.  So I would really prefer to leave things unmunged - spammers
> may have my address but they WILL get reported.

You are reporting a server which is doing nothing wrong.  That is *not*
a good scenario.  It is arguably bad reporting by spamcop, which /can/
get you in trouble.

> Unfortunately, the only possible resolution here is if the .pk server
> wakes up and stops bouncing listserver email to places that a human
> observer could quite easily see it should NOT go to.

The .pk server is receiving a mail which was posted by you, with your
>From and belatedly bouncing it to you.  That is not /exactly/
misdirected.

The problem is that you are intereacting with a system which is causing
that to happen.  Using SpamCop as a bludgeon against the .pk server is
not the same thing as using SC for 'normal' misdirected bounces.

Normally misdirected bounces are bouncing an item to an abused forged
From.  In this case the bounces are going to the /real/ From, not a
forged one..

> And why, of all places, does it have to be .pk - or Pakistan?  Because
> everyone elsewhere seems to know how to properly configure their
> mailserver in order to avoid misdirected bounces like this one.  If I
> could, I'd have it SC reported to admin at lugnet.com, since you seem to
> have identified them as the listserver owner.

I think that lugnet needs to be dealing with this situation.  It is
their setup which is causing your news post to go flying around the mail
system and causing trouble for mail servers.

> I'm pretty sure this spam email is breaking more than a few RFC
> protocols. If the mailserver at lugnet is the sender, it should be
> the recipient, or at the very least the Reply-to:, which it isn't.

Correct.  The ideal situation would be that the lugnet process would be
stamping the mail in a proper way, and that the .pk server would be
rejecting a mail it can't deliver and that the rejection would be
'signalled' to the lugnet server, which should know if a mailing list
recipient's mail isn't working properly.

But, as a general rule, the advisability of your From being munged is an
almost universal bit of advice.  Very very few people think you should
be posting to 'some' newsservers with an unmunged From.  I can see that
you use an unmunged From here, and this is a private newsserver like the
lugnet one -- so maybe it is your conviction that this type of
newsserver should get a real From -- so I can't argue strongly about
that decision.  I'm just saying that IMO this is not a normal spamcop
misdirected bounce.  It is not misdirected because it is directed at a
true unforged From, not a bogus or forged From.  So, if the bounce isn't
misdirected, then it isn't reportable.

I say that if you wish you can leave your addy unmunged for this
newsserver, but you can't spamcop report the bounce which isn't
misdirected.


-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin