someone is using my email address to spam, is there a way to stop this ?

[Robert Brockway]

On Sat, 9 Aug 2008, Phillip Mills wrote:

> I don't have any answers.  When it happens to me I sometimes send 
> semi-snarky messages to the admins of the servers, saying things like: 
> "My address resolves to a Canadian ISP and the Received: header shows 
> that the spam you got came from Bermuda.  There's a notable distance 
> between these. Please stop adding to the internet's spam problem."

Hi Phillip.  Blocking mail based on source is what SPF is for.  It causes 
lots of problems.  For one thing SPF is essentially incompatible with 
mailing lists just like this one.

Even if it were possible for the receiving MTA to make a rational decision 
about whether the email's path had anything to do with whether it is spam 
or not it would block a lot of legimate email.

Examples include, lists hosted in far off lands, back up MXs in other 
countries, ISPs with networks spanning large areas (who said the ISPs MTA 
sends to send the email out from anywhere near you).

> I suspect it does no good, but at least it allows me to vent a little about 
> the absolute stupidity of anyone who would run software that  bounces 
> messages to From: addresses.

It's an RFC 2821/2822 requirement.  A bounce message is a very important 
part of SMTP so the MTAs sending the bounces aren't generally at fault. 
Without bounce messages a sender would have no way of knowing that their 
email had failed to reach its destination.

This bounce is an example of backscatter spam which has a number of 
causes.  The spammers and those with boxes suceptible to backscatter are 
the cause.

Cheers,

Rob

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"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine..."
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