6 ms·

My new anti-spam tactic is to duplicate Gmail's 'bounce/address not found' response and respond with that. Believing that your email address isn't valid, they'l

My new anti-spam tactic is to duplicate Gmail's 'bounce/address not found' response and respond with that. Believing that your email address isn't valid, they'll stop spamming you (bounces affect deliverability) and also probably not sell your data. If you just hit unsubscribe, now they've validated your email so they can sell it

culi 4y ago
Probably better to just "Mark as spam" if you have Gmail. If enough people do that Google will start marking those emails as spam by default Helps everyone else too
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
SCdF 4y ago
To build on what culi said, marking as spam actually sends information out to various validators, and will increased the chance at that sender will be automatically marked as spam for everybody else, and so is absolutely worth doing (though it will also send an unsubscribe, if you're worried about that)
- MerelyMortal 4y ago
  Doesn't gmail offer the choice of "marking as spam" or "marking as spam and unsubscribing"? I always just choose "mark as spam".
  - SCdF 4y ago
    I have the old UI maybe? Or the new one? I can't keep up... I just have a "Report Spam" icon, with no choice to differentiate between the two.
    - sowbug 4y ago
      It's an interactive prompt once you press the spam button. Whether it appears depends on whether the system identifies an unsubscribe link in the mail.
      - noirbot 4y ago
        I'm always worried that the spammer just uses "unsubscribe" as a sign that the email actually got through the spam filter and a human saw it? Aside, I've been having a TON of very similar spam emails getting through Google's spam filter, and even marking them as spam doesn't seem to do anything. It's been going on for months at this point. I'm close to just closing that Gmail account because I have no idea what to do about getting close to 10 spam emails per day straight into my inbox in a way Google seemingly can't fix. It's super obvious spam too. "tHe IRs hs a REFUND for u" level stuff.
  - James-Livesey 4y ago
    Wouldn't it be better for Google to have a "mark as spam and delete future emails" option? That way, your inbox stays clean, spammers have wasted some credit for whatever email marketing service they use on an email that will never be read, and eventually spamming would become futile since emails will be deleted on reception.
zxcvbn4038 4y ago
I'm pretty sure they don't care if your address is valid or not, they will sell it anyway. My grandfather has been dead for over thirty years now, he still gets junk mail, his data is still on all the people finder sites.
- aliqot 4y ago
  That's not what valid means in this context.
  - zxcvbn4038 4y ago
    Is that you Transunion?
    - aliqot 4y ago
      That depends, what's your DOB, last 4 and mother's maiden name?
HypnoDrone 4y ago
This is what mailinabox does (https://mailinabox.email/ https://mailinabox.email/) to combat spam and it has worked remarkably well. In the few years I've been running my own mail server I have received ZERO spam in my inbox. For more info, the technique is called greylisting https://postgrey.schweikert.ch/ https://postgrey.schweikert.ch/
- codethief 4y ago
  Ehh, but this is not greylisting? Greylisting temporarily rejects an email and requests the sender try again after a while.
- zhfliz 4y ago
  greylisting is not the same. greylisting is responding with a temp error under the assumption that most spam won't retry on temp errors, which isn't the case for most spam anymore. real bounces are permanent errors.
  - stevekemp 4y ago
    Greylisting is one of those techniques I always loved, as it was so simple and logical. As you say these days spammers will retry, but its an approach that still has value, because in the period between the initial delivery-attempt (which is rejected) and the final one (where it would be attempted) it is more likely that the sender has already appeared on DNS-based blocklists.
    - hda111 4y ago
      But there is also the problem that some people don’t want to wait multiple minutes or hours for an email, like password reset emails. I see too many disadvantages.
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
I'm not sure e-mail selling is as rife as it used to be. Starting in 2003 and up until 2016, I used a catch-all e-mail address and would sign up for everything using a custom e-mail address. I wouldn't even do in the form of "sohcahtoa82+service@mydomain.com", I'd just do "amazon@mydomain.com". The only spam e-mails I got that were e-mail addresses I used were from a couple shady cryptocurrency mining pools, a forum that got hacked, and the e-mail address I used on USENET. I also got spam sent to <random hex digits>@mydomain and lots of <two random dictionary words>@mydomain. Knowing how much spam came from my USENET e-mail address (which I eventually changed and black-holed), I wonder how many spammers are scraping usernames from reddit and just spamming username@gmail.com.
- notwhereyouare 4y ago
  there was a thread the other day that people felt that wasn't a good indicator. Because people might take the list from say adobe, and filter out anything with adobe in the email
  - jbverschoor 4y ago
    Hello, my name is Adobe Meta Apple Netflix Amazon Microsoft. How may I help you?
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    If they filtered out "adobe" then all that would be left is "@mydomain.com", which isn't a valid e-mail address.

culi 4y ago

Probably better to just "Mark as spam" if you have Gmail. If enough people do that Google will start marking those emails as spam by default Helps everyone else too

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

SCdF 4y ago

To build on what culi said, marking as spam actually sends information out to various validators, and will increased the chance at that sender will be automatically marked as spam for everybody else, and so is absolutely worth doing (though it will also send an unsubscribe, if you're worried about that)

MerelyMortal 4y ago
Doesn't gmail offer the choice of "marking as spam" or "marking as spam and unsubscribing"? I always just choose "mark as spam".
- SCdF 4y ago
  I have the old UI maybe? Or the new one? I can't keep up... I just have a "Report Spam" icon, with no choice to differentiate between the two.
  - sowbug 4y ago
    It's an interactive prompt once you press the spam button. Whether it appears depends on whether the system identifies an unsubscribe link in the mail.
    - noirbot 4y ago
      I'm always worried that the spammer just uses "unsubscribe" as a sign that the email actually got through the spam filter and a human saw it? Aside, I've been having a TON of very similar spam emails getting through Google's spam filter, and even marking them as spam doesn't seem to do anything. It's been going on for months at this point. I'm close to just closing that Gmail account because I have no idea what to do about getting close to 10 spam emails per day straight into my inbox in a way Google seemingly can't fix. It's super obvious spam too. "tHe IRs hs a REFUND for u" level stuff.
- James-Livesey 4y ago
  Wouldn't it be better for Google to have a "mark as spam and delete future emails" option? That way, your inbox stays clean, spammers have wasted some credit for whatever email marketing service they use on an email that will never be read, and eventually spamming would become futile since emails will be deleted on reception.

zxcvbn4038 4y ago

I'm pretty sure they don't care if your address is valid or not, they will sell it anyway. My grandfather has been dead for over thirty years now, he still gets junk mail, his data is still on all the people finder sites.

aliqot 4y ago
That's not what valid means in this context.
- zxcvbn4038 4y ago
  Is that you Transunion?
  - aliqot 4y ago
    That depends, what's your DOB, last 4 and mother's maiden name?

HypnoDrone 4y ago

This is what mailinabox does (https://mailinabox.email/ https://mailinabox.email/) to combat spam and it has worked remarkably well. In the few years I've been running my own mail server I have received ZERO spam in my inbox. For more info, the technique is called greylisting https://postgrey.schweikert.ch/ https://postgrey.schweikert.ch/

codethief 4y ago
Ehh, but this is not greylisting? Greylisting temporarily rejects an email and requests the sender try again after a while.
zhfliz 4y ago
greylisting is not the same. greylisting is responding with a temp error under the assumption that most spam won't retry on temp errors, which isn't the case for most spam anymore. real bounces are permanent errors.
- stevekemp 4y ago
  Greylisting is one of those techniques I always loved, as it was so simple and logical. As you say these days spammers will retry, but its an approach that still has value, because in the period between the initial delivery-attempt (which is rejected) and the final one (where it would be attempted) it is more likely that the sender has already appeared on DNS-based blocklists.
  - hda111 4y ago
    But there is also the problem that some people don’t want to wait multiple minutes or hours for an email, like password reset emails. I see too many disadvantages.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

I'm not sure e-mail selling is as rife as it used to be. Starting in 2003 and up until 2016, I used a catch-all e-mail address and would sign up for everything using a custom e-mail address. I wouldn't even do in the form of "sohcahtoa82+service@mydomain.com", I'd just do "amazon@mydomain.com". The only spam e-mails I got that were e-mail addresses I used were from a couple shady cryptocurrency mining pools, a forum that got hacked, and the e-mail address I used on USENET. I also got spam sent to <random hex digits>@mydomain and lots of <two random dictionary words>@mydomain. Knowing how much spam came from my USENET e-mail address (which I eventually changed and black-holed), I wonder how many spammers are scraping usernames from reddit and just spamming username@gmail.com.

notwhereyouare 4y ago
there was a thread the other day that people felt that wasn't a good indicator. Because people might take the list from say adobe, and filter out anything with adobe in the email
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  Hello, my name is Adobe Meta Apple Netflix Amazon Microsoft. How may I help you?
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  If they filtered out "adobe" then all that would be left is "@mydomain.com", which isn't a valid e-mail address.