RE: [Exim] rbl server spews...

On Fri, 20 Jun 2003, Matthew Palmer wrote:

> Eli:

> > it's just like your postman/woman throwing out some of your mail that they
> > think is garbage,

(no, it isn't - see below)

> > before you even get to see any of it! I'm sure you
> > wouldn't want that happening, even if it was just garbage!
>
> Really bad analogy:

Depends how you interpret it.

> 1) The postal service is usually an entity contractually obligated to
> deliver mail.

There's an explicit list of prohibited items, as well as some generic
categories covering material of an offensive nature or likely to cause
injury to the postal staff. The postal service is fully entitled to
refuse to accept such items for delivery.

[I'm not sure whether to rate spam as "material of an offensive
nature" or "likely to cause injury to the e-postal staff" - some of it
probably qualifies on both grounds :-} ]

The whole point of rejecting spam at SMTP time is to _avoid_ appearing
to accept it - and then throwing it away without informing the sender.

Of course, if the sender has managed to palm it off first on some
third-party relay, then the fact that we subsequently rejected it
might never get back to the actual sender: but that's out of our
hands. We don't do any "throwing out" ourselves, if we can possibly
avoid it: we only refuse to accept the item.

best regards