Re: Changes to the mailinglist setup

[John Goerzen]
> We return 550 during the SMTP conversation. If this was something
> from a real human, they'd be contacting us another way.

Right. I believe this way of measuring false positives is inaccurate,
as I know some users will just curse and conclude that if the system
refuse to accept the email, they will just ignore the user behind that
email and leave those not getting the information in the email in
ignorant bliss. Several times I have tried to submit a patch to a
software proejct only to have the email rejected. In those cases, I
just leave it at that, because I do not want to spend more time on
people rejecting valid email.

> Which is another benefit of RBLs -- with some MTAs, it's easier to
> do the checking as part of the SMTP conversation, so sane error can
> be returned to humans if indeed they were the original senders.

Here at work they use the blacklists to decide the speed of the SMTP
responses. Hosts listed in blacklists get very slow response, while
others receive immediate response. A lot of spammers do not wait 30
seconds to 5 minutes for a response and just disconnect, while most
(all?) real mail servers have more patience. :)

Friendly,
--
Petter Reinholdtsen