OT: Re: [Mimedefang] Suggestions on rejecting relays that provide syntactically-invalid arguments to HELO/EHLO

[listuser at numbnuts.net]

On Fri, 23 May 2003, Michael Sims wrote:

> Quoting Kenneth Porter <shiva at sewingwitch.com>:
> 
> > > I'm also trying to decide what error I want to
> > > give people.  I should probably give an error such as "Invalid argument
> > > passed to HELO" or even "HELO requires fully qualified domain name or
> > > address literal", but I hesitate to tell the spammers how to fix their
> > > spamware to bypass this.
> > 
> > Perhaps something cryptic like "Peer not RFC-compliant"?
> 
> I like it. :)  How about a nice Microsoft error message like:
> 
> "The action could not be completed. The action could not be completed."
> 
> or even better:
> 
> "There was a problem.  The command completed successfully."
> 
> or:
> 
> "An unknown error has occured.  Please save your work, reboot the Internet, and 
> try again."
> 
> Sorry, I'm in a bit of a silly mood tonight... :)

A clean install of Windows 98 and F-Secure AV once gave me an interesting 
virus report (I have a screen shot somewhere):

Virus found!  "Windows"   [Delete] [Ignore]

I forget the exact wording but that's the jist of it.  Another good one
was the time Symantec SystemWorks on another Windows box of some sort gave
me a 666 error.  I have a screenshot of that somewhere too.

Way back when, when I was just testing Sendmail accessDB rejections of
sites that were spamming the hell out of me I'd think up dumbest/weirdest
error messages imagineable.

Could not complete your request.  The monkey is getting a haircut.
I love you.  Good bye.
I can't take it any more.  I'm breaking up with you.
If you need help, hang up and dial your operator for assistance.
STOP in the name of love.  Before you break my...
Psst..  The cow is out of the barn.  The moose is in jail.
Please deposit 25 cents for your call to be completed.
She's lying to you.  Size does matter.
Your call could not be completed as dialed.  Please check the number and 
try your call again.
Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.
Thank you.  Drive through.
All circuits are busy now.  Please try your call again later.

Like I said, they were dumb.  I had a lot more (and much better ones) but
unfortunately I can't remember them all now.  I only seem to remember the
ones I handed out the most.  Ya'll remember hrpromotions.com and
freebiesweeps.com, don't you?  <sigh> I gave up on this quickly, though,
due to the fact that I was listing a 2-3 hundred domains a week at my
peak.  It's hard to be *that* creative plus it would be hard to explain to
a user (or even worse, a user's husband) that I really wasn't breaking off
the relationship with them when I put my domain list into production use.
:)

Justin