At 21:42 18/10/2004, Mark Foster wrote:
What I am trying to say (if not very well). What do people think of this feature of mailwasher. I've emailed the writer a few times for comments over the last few years and heard nothing from him. Have ISP's complained to uses using it? stopped people using it? or what?
Speaking personally, everyone I have ever come across who's mentioned the name 'Mailwasher' has had a response from me of 'fine, but NEVER EVER use the bounce feature'. This is usually greeted with a 'Oh really? I had never realised that would put me in breach of any rule.'
I've contacted a few customers about it in the past, and all have been happy to turn the bounce feature off or even stop using the program altogether when the situation is explained. (I wrote up a standard "form" explanation of the problem which I just modify slightly as needed when sending it) When they realise not only is it not doing them any good (spammers never see the bounces, but it wastes their time online sending them) and actually causes problems for ISP's mail servers, they usually understand.
Very likely that people who are using mailwasher's bounce feature are 'using an application feature' and are not aware of the fact that they're doing anything potentially wrong. Maybe the software needs a big dialogue box when enabling that option which states very clearly the risks.
Or maybe the author needs continual whacking with a clue stick until he removes a "feature" that has no proven benefits (spammers never see the bounces because the return address is ALWAYS fake nowadays, and there is no evidence that spammers DO remove addresses that bounce ANYWAY, and lots of evidence that they DONT) but has proven negative effects. (Wasted online time for users sending the fake bounces, ISP's mailserver queues getting clogged with mostly undeliverable messages, and innocent third parties getting joe jobbed just because their address was used as the reply address in some spam) I lump this feature of Mailwasher right up there with virus scanners who reply to the "sender" of a virus, (which is also always fake or an innocent third party these days) its exactly the same braindead stupidity that needs to be stamped out before peoples inboxes are overcome with a new menace - bogus bounce messages due to incorrectly configured virus scanners, and spam "filters" that generate bounces...(it's already becomming a big problem) As someone pointed out, this exact issue has come up on nznog before (a year ago ?) and obviously the Mailwasher author is still clueless and/or unrepentant. I for one would sign a petition to have it removed from Mailwasher if someone were to start one ;-) Regards, Simon