deleting .invalid-address good or bad? (procmail)
tells
Just a somewhat stupid thought after adding this remove-part to my
.procmailrc...
Should one respect .invalid addresses as "I know what I'm doing and
can't send using a valid address" or as showing no respect for the one
they're sending the e-mail to?
/t
David Efflandt
You should problably also check if there is a Reply-To: and whether it is
valid. If From: is invalid AND Reply-To: does not exist or is invalid,
the person is either clueless about setting up their e-mail client or it
is spam.
However, one problem is a newsreader with an invalid e-mail address and
the user forgets to correct that when sending an e-mail reply. Sometimes
you can fix that by removing something obvious from the address, but I
have received such replies where my reply to them bounced with no way to
determine a valid return address.
Whenever playing with new rules, you should have the rotating 32 message
"safety net" shown in 'man procmailrc', but you might need to make it
bigger if you get heavy spam.
--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored
http://www.autox.chicago.il.us/ http://www.berniesfloral.net/
http://www.nsscc.com/ - free driver school Friday nights in March
tells
> On Sat, 02 Mar 2002 14:49:00 GMT, tells <te...@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
> >
> > Just a somewhat stupid thought after adding this remove-part to my
> > .procmailrc...
> >
> > Should one respect .invalid addresses as "I know what I'm doing and
> > can't send using a valid address" or as showing no respect for the one
> > they're sending the e-mail to?
>
> You should problably also check if there is a Reply-To: and whether it is
> valid. If From: is invalid AND Reply-To: does not exist or is invalid,
> the person is either clueless about setting up their e-mail client or it
> is spam.
If there is a Reply-to header then I'm using that, ignoring if the
reply-to header is an abvious fake while the From isnt (not even doing
the most simple tests to see which one to use at this time).
> However, one problem is a newsreader with an invalid e-mail address and
> the user forgets to correct that when sending an e-mail reply. Sometimes
> you can fix that by removing something obvious from the address, but I
> have received such replies where my reply to them bounced with no way to
> determine a valid return address.
True, and during the years I've gotten a lot e-mails where people ask
for help, but then get pissed off when I tell them that my reply to them
bounced and that I will not resend it... I'm sick and tired of that, so
when I'm done I'll have a special usenet-address that will send an auto-
reply telling them what to do to reach me. Will probably also have an
URI to someplace where the "rules" are in my signature.
> Whenever playing with new rules, you should have the rotating 32 message
> "safety net" shown in 'man procmailrc', but you might need to make it
> bigger if you get heavy spam.
I do of course have a safetynet, but that's not really my "problem";
it's more of a ethical one... I mean, .invalid has been created for a
purpose, should I then use it to ignore the people that actually knows
how to use it...? And the practical problem then becomes if
/dev/null:ing .invalid's actually will remove mostly e-mails that I
don't want removed (like people away from home that included their phone
number instead).
Yes, I know, this isn't really a huge problem IRL, but I thought I'd
find out what people think anyways. :-)
/t
David Efflandt
> David Efflandt <effl...@xnet.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 02 Mar 2002 14:49:00 GMT, tells <te...@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
>> >
>> > Just a somewhat stupid thought after adding this remove-part to my
>> > .procmailrc...
>> >
>> > Should one respect .invalid addresses as "I know what I'm doing and
>> > can't send using a valid address" or as showing no respect for the one
>> > they're sending the e-mail to?
Sorry, I misread your subject line as invalid-address rather than .invalid
address. If you receive mail with an address that ends .invalid, it
should be considered exactly that. Whether you want to see if the msg has
some clue how to reach the user, or track them down on a newsgroup and
hope they see your post politely explaining the error of their ways, is up
to you. I guess it is easy enough to delete if there is no sign of how to
reach the person in the body.
What is more frustrating is when you go to the trouble of replying to
e-mail and a not so obvious address bounces.
tells
> On Sat, 02 Mar 2002 16:58:06 GMT, tells <te...@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
> > David Efflandt <effl...@xnet.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sat, 02 Mar 2002 14:49:00 GMT, tells <te...@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Just a somewhat stupid thought after adding this remove-part to my
> >> > .procmailrc...
> >> >
> >> > Should one respect .invalid addresses as "I know what I'm doing and
> >> > can't send using a valid address" or as showing no respect for the one
> >> > they're sending the e-mail to?
>
> Sorry, I misread your subject line as invalid-address rather than .invalid
> address. If you receive mail with an address that ends .invalid, it
> should be considered exactly that. Whether you want to see if the msg has
> some clue how to reach the user, or track them down on a newsgroup and
> hope they see your post politely explaining the error of their ways, is up
> to you. I guess it is easy enough to delete if there is no sign of how to
> reach the person in the body.
>
> What is more frustrating is when you go to the trouble of replying to
> e-mail and a not so obvious address bounces.
This time I think you missed the ".procmailrc"-part... :-)
/t