🚀 go-pugleaf

Feico <feicorem0veth1s@gmx.net> wrote:

>On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 10:04:29 +0100, Alan Bellingham <alanb@episys.com> wrote in
>
>>Probable spam. Therefore the sending address is false. But the sending
>>address may actually exist, in which case you are sending unsolicited
>>bulk email to it.
>
>Unsolicited, yes. Bulk, no.

Bulk, yes. By your plan, when a spammer sends you multiple messages, you
send out multiple messages.

>>Unfortunately, by the time the email has been received by your ISP and
>>stored in the post box, it's too late, _way_ too late, to do the most
>>useful things (rejecting (not bouncing) anything from hijacked net
>>space, from known spammers, from open proxies, etc etc).
>
>I disagree. Spam should be discarded before I notice it. I have a program that continually checks my
>pop box and reports that there is mail for me. That's too late, I don't want such a report if it is
>spam. But a program that runs on my local computer and that discards spam is fine to me.

'discard', fine, absolutely fine. What I was referring to was the
problem that, since you don't run the mail server itself, you cannot
reject connections to it.

Rejecting connections in the SMTP conversation is the civilised way to
do it. It does not generate a new message - it just refuses to accept
one.

However, your complaint is that spam is not being rejected. It's in your
box. By the time you (or your program) sees it, you don't have half the
information that the mail server had. (Such as the list of addresses the
message was to.)

By all means, scrub your pop box clean. But please don't go sending out
messages as a result of spam unless you know darned well that it's going
to the right address. Unfortunately, it's extremely likely that you
don't, since you don't have access to the envelope data. 

>>You'll need to read up on socket programming. 
>
>Where?

You could try the help files under 'working with sockets'. Or
http://msdn.microsoft.com. Or I'm sure there are books out there. But
I've not done socket programming under C++, so I'm afraid I can't be as
much help as I'd like.

Be warned, though - this is potentially a major project, there are lots
of ways to screw up, and there's probably software out there to do it
for you anyway. If you want to do it anyway, then go ahead. Just do it 
with your eyes open.

Alan Bellingham
-- 
ACCU Conference 2005 - 20-23 April, Randolph Hotel, Oxford, UK