I have recently discovered that there are a lot of very stupid email administrators in this world.

In the last two days, two of my domains have been pummeled by large numbers of emails to non-existent people - the apparent result of sites trying to bounce undeliverable messages back to forged email addresses.

What these sites are doing is accepting inbound emails without question, then running them through some sort of filtering device, usually something like a Barracuda Spam Firewall. The filtering device determines the email is either undeliverable or inappropriate. Fine. The problem is the stupid device then tries to *return* the email to a forged sender. Which is some random victim domain.

This is just an entirely stupid way of doing filtering. One should filter before accepting the mail. If you don't like what you're getting, reject the original SMTP transaction with a 500 series or 5.x.x (permanent) failure code. Once you accept it, it then becomes your problem. It shouldn't become mine. All you are doing by trying to bounce it back to forged email addresses is doubling the traffic generated by the spam.

I need to go find a technology-less deserted island and go hide...I can't stand the stupidity of some of the stuff I see on the internet these days. Doesn't anyone understand how this stuff works anymore?!?!?!

Tags: Technology