Re: [exim] AutoReplay for Unknow users RETRY

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Author: Fred Viles
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] AutoReplay for Unknow users RETRY
On 1 Oct 2005 at 11:50, Silmar A. Marca wrote about
    "[exim] AutoReplay for Unknow users ":


| I need help to make a autoreply to a inexistents users retry.


IMHO, that's a very Bad Idea. You will be generating collateral
spam.

| Example:
|
| mail from: <bogusmaillist@domain> ... OK
| rcpt to: <unknow@mydomain> 550 User not found...
|
| If the list retry to user more than 5 x weekly, I need to send a message
| "Please remove this account of your mail list...."


If bogusmaillist@domain is a legitimate mail list, as you seem to be assuming, that would be pointless. bogusmaillist@domain will already be getting DSNs as a result of your rejections, and so the list admin (or his robot) will already know to remove or disable the account.
OTOH, if the messages are spam or other abuse (as I would assume)
then an autoreply would be *worse* than useless. It will either be:

1. Undeliverable because bogusmaillist@domain is an invalid address
2. Ignored because bogusmaillist@domain is a spammer
3. Abusive because bogusmaillist@domain is an innocent third party
whose address was forged by the spammer.

Case 3 is the big problem with your idea. In addition to being just
plain wrong, it can get your server blacklisted.

I suppose there is a third possibility, that bogusmaillist@domain
really is a legitimate mailling list that is so poorly run the DSNs
are being ignored. Is that really the case? If it is, there's no
reason to expect your autoreply would be any more effective. You'll
have to discover and follow the lists' unsubscribe mechanism.

Hmm, thinking about it, if the list messages include a
List-Unsubscribe: header containing a mailto: URL, you could automate
sending an unsubscribe message. That might be fairly safe to do, but
before investing the effort it would probably be best to check and
see how many cases you have where it would really help.

- Fred