On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:05:02 -0400 Henning Follmann <hfollm...@itcfollmann.com> wrote:
> > > > You have a much too simplistic view of todays anti-spam measures. > > If an smtp server tries to deliver a messages, usually the first the > receiving server does, during the helo, checking if the sending > server is blacklisted. If blacklisted any attempt to deliver any mail > will be denied and the sender will receive a proper 5XX error message. Yes, certainly, though a check of the sending IP DNS and a complete list of valid recipients stop a lot more spam than my blacklists do. Even requiring a thirty-second timeout stops a lot, no legitimate mail server minds waiting that long. > > If the initial test passes though and the mail is accepted the mail > has been "reliably" delivered. If any additional filter decide that > this is spam then -again- we are dealing with an technical solution > to a social problem. The social problem of the existence of thieves and idiot marketing people. I suspect a social solution to this social problem will not come in my lifetime. > Still e-mail is fairly reliable. > The issue as always is the overcommunication inflation which pretty > much created the current situation. Finetuning the system to avoid > fals positives while minimizing spam is an art. Indeed, which is why I pretty well gave up on content analysis. My usual email client dumps a few really egregious subjects, but otherwise I rely on a well-trained mail server. The email address above is genuine, and has been used on Usenet and various web-published forums for more than eighteen years, and still only about half a dozen spams a day make it to my mailbox. But things are improving, I only reject about a hundred a day, and ten years ago it averaged more than a thousand a day. My record was more than twelve thousand... -- Joe
