On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 03:56:30PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
Quoting James Harper (james.harper@bendigoit.com.au):
This "spam uses highest number MX" used to be a lot more common than it is now, to the point where you could exploit it by having a tertiary MX that always gave a "try again later" and the spambot would give up whilst having no impact on legitimate email.
I remember reading about this ploy a few years ago, and hoisted a mug in honour of whatever Right Bastardly sysadmin invented it.
might have been me. i don't recall reading or hearing of it before I started doing it, or before i started mentioning it as a useful anti-spam technique. of course, it's something so simple and obvious that it's likely to have been independently invented several times. i've also been pushing the "you almost certainly don't need a backup MX even if you think you do" idea for over 10 years. they typically cause far more problems than they solve (mostly backscatter. also possible bypass of primary mx spam filters).
Appreciate the news that the spam wars have moved on from spammer-using-highest-MX days. I've been not paying much attention to the latest skirmishes.
nah, me either. my spam filters because good enough for my home MTA years ago (i can cope with a handful of spams per month), and i don't run MTAs for ISPs any more. I probably only add a few rules per year now. I don't miss having to read lots of spam looking for patterns to make better filters...it's not as annoying as having spam clog up your mailbox but it's still often disgusting and disturbing to read. craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au> BOFH excuse #107: The keyboard isn't plugged in