By now most of you are aware of the bounce problem with spam. Since spam comes mostly from spoofed email addresses, older mail systems which bounces mail, either as an anti-spam measure or because the user does not exist, is now obsolete. Indeed, the correct methodology is now to reject mail at delivery time using a reject error code. Plesk has taken that into account with its patched implementation of qmail. Older versions of qmail, postfix, and sendmail might still be problematic.
But let’s look at the big picture. Aside from regular mailboxes, think of every situation where a mail server might send a bounce message. Since we’re already talking about Plesk, let’s use Plesk (Linux) as an example. Even though its qmail is patched to avoid bouncing (even though customers are still able to turn bouncing on if they’re
I think it’s time to address these issues. I think it’s time for ALL mail applications to reject at time of delivery if it will not be forwarding the mail to its final destination.
And it’s also time to educate the end user a bit further. No catch-alls. No auto-responders. And for god’s sake, no catch-alls with auto-responders.
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