Sunday 9 March 2008

Bounce that spam please!

Looking at the number of spam emails (approximately 3 spams for 1 good email!), something needs to make sure that the same sender does not send a different spam. To handle this, we could have an auto-bounce feature such that once a spam is marked manually for auto-bounce, the next spam from the same user results in an 'invalid email-address' or 'inbox full' kind of messages.

The only issues we might face:

1.) This involves the mix-up of user-requirement with the underlying protocol!. No purists would like this.

2.) The spam-generators would start getting intelligent in sending spams - It might start using different 'from' addresses and messages against the same Inbox. If either of the email was delivered, it can safely assume that the email-id is valid. This could be resolved by letting the email-server perform auto-bounce using the same logic it uses currently for spam, rather than explicitly marking it for an 'auto-bounce'.


3.) In cases of the server automatically handling it, we might loose a couple of good emails since it was identified as spam and got auto-bounced.

Can this work ? How else can I avoid that spam from reaching my email box and avoid skimming through the hundreds of spam in search of that one good-email ?

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