[Mimedefang] On pinheaded ISP's that insist on a copy of Spam

[David F. Skoll]

Philip Prindeville wrote:

> Simply saying, "One of your customers tried to spam me,
> but I rejected it... here are the logs" isn't enough.  They
> insist that I give them a copy of the message

I think that's perfectly reasonable.  If you are initiating a
complaint against someone, it's up to you to preserve and present all
of the evidence.

> (since they're
> the ones needing the message, you'd think they would
> collect that data themselves... idiots.  And I don't care if
> it means snooping their clients' email and invading their
> privacy... that's their problem, not mine).

If I were an ISP and you complained to me with that attitude, I would
ignore your complaint.  You're basically advising me to violate my
customers' privacy.

> So I try to explain to them that there's really no good reason
> why I should disable my highly efficient spam filters just to
> make their jobs easier... at which point they reply, "Well, the
> message might not have originated with us..."

If you intend to complain, then your spam filters should be designed
so you can collect enough evidence to make a proper complaint.

Our commercial software, for example, collects all the envelope
information, all of the headers, and the first 8kB of the message body
and generates a complaint mail.  It also uses WHOIS to figure out who
the best person to complain to is.  You then go in and edit the
generated mail and recipient list as required, and hit "send".
(Although we reject unwanted messages with a 5xx code, we do keep some
info about them in a database, partly for the purpose of sending
well-formed complaints.)

> And I'm thinking, "Then what the hell are they doing
> operating an open relay?!?!?"

Well, if you feel that the ISP is operating an open relay and not taking
your complaints seriously, then blacklist the ISP and report it to Spamhaus
and Spamcop.

--
David.