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The problem is that the overwhelming majority of spam has a false return address, and the technologies to verify that mail came from the server it claims aren't
by pwmanagerdied 17y ago
The problem is that the overwhelming majority of spam has a false return address, and the technologies to verify that mail came from the server it claims aren't yet widely enough used to be reliable. The bounces create an extremely large amount of traffic for servers unrelated to the spammers.
Besides, many servers do behave in the way you specify. Before I had the sense to disable catch-all email addresses on a few domains I owned, they were all being flooded with bounced spam, much of which my spam filters didn't catch.
Blah. Everything's a mess.
- mkyc 17y agoThe important part of what I said above is that the spam would not arrive in any inbox. The temptation (and ability) to look through spam is the current problem, and would be eliminated. If some servers are already doing that, then they are doing the right thing - except, the message body of a spam should not be bounced. The extra traffic on the bounce is worth expending, since it is necessary to keep spam out of sight. If they can't get their message through, they lose the incentive to send spam. That's all that matters.