How To - Bounce/Return spam to sender in .NET

Hi,

I've spent a fair bit of time searching the internet for an example on how
to bounce an email, like what MailWasher does from .NET. My home email
server gets hit pretty badly with spam, and rather than using server
software and risk losing email, i'd rather have some control over what gets
deleted and bounced, and so forth.

I've written a program that allows me to delete emails without downloading
them, but can someone point me in the direction (either RFC or example) in
any language (.NET, VB, Win32, etc).

Would massivly appreciate it, ultimatley I want to write an app I can
operate remotely etc, bust just need to work out how to bounce correctly.

Thanks!

David
Sat Oct 21 13:02:08 CDT 2006

"OPL" <no@thanks> wrote in message
news:ugOkVxR9GHA.4572@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Hi,
>
> I've spent a fair bit of time searching the internet for an example on how
> to bounce an email, like what MailWasher does from .NET. My home email
> server gets hit pretty badly with spam, and rather than using server
> software and risk losing email, i'd rather have some control over what
> gets deleted and bounced, and so forth.
>
> I've written a program that allows me to delete emails without downloading
> them, but can someone point me in the direction (either RFC or example) in
> any language (.NET, VB, Win32, etc).
>
> Would massivly appreciate it, ultimatley I want to write an app I can
> operate remotely etc, bust just need to work out how to bounce correctly.
>

How do you propose bouncing spam without creating more spam?

David

Scott
Sat Oct 21 13:29:37 CDT 2006

Why would you want to send spam back to the sender? In most cases, the
sender's address is a real address that has been hijacked, so you will wind
up sending your spam to them. In addition, if the spam does go back to the
sender, you are, in effect, letting them know that your email address (which
will be in the FROM field of your bounced email) is a real and valid
address, so they will just send you more spam.

Just get a good spam filter.

"OPL" <no@thanks> wrote in message
news:ugOkVxR9GHA.4572@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Hi,
>
> I've spent a fair bit of time searching the internet for an example on how
> to bounce an email, like what MailWasher does from .NET. My home email
> server gets hit pretty badly with spam, and rather than using server
> software and risk losing email, i'd rather have some control over what
> gets deleted and bounced, and so forth.
>
> I've written a program that allows me to delete emails without downloading
> them, but can someone point me in the direction (either RFC or example) in
> any language (.NET, VB, Win32, etc).
>
> Would massivly appreciate it, ultimatley I want to write an app I can
> operate remotely etc, bust just need to work out how to bounce correctly.
>
> Thanks!
>

Ben
Mon Oct 23 07:47:42 CDT 2006


"OPL" <no@thanks> wrote in message
news:ugOkVxR9GHA.4572@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Hi,
>
> I've spent a fair bit of time searching the internet for an example on how
> to bounce an email, like what MailWasher does from .NET. My home email
> server gets hit pretty badly with spam, and rather than using server
> software and risk losing email, i'd rather have some control over what
> gets deleted and bounced, and so forth.

Bouncing has to be done at the SMTP server, in lieu of accepting the email.
Note you could still deliver the email to the user even though you rejected
it with an SMTP error. Once your email server has told the other server it
took the email, any further action on your part would be an "abuse report"
of sorts, and equally ineffective.

You'll note that whenever you send an e-mail that gets bounced (Destination
mailbox full, for example), the return notice you receive comes from your
mailserver and not the recipient's. That's because the recipient responded
to your e-mail with an error (3xx, 4xx, 5xx) and never accepted
responsibility for delivery.

>
> I've written a program that allows me to delete emails without downloading
> them, but can someone point me in the direction (either RFC or example) in
> any language (.NET, VB, Win32, etc).
>
> Would massivly appreciate it, ultimatley I want to write an app I can
> operate remotely etc, bust just need to work out how to bounce correctly.
>
> Thanks!
>

Brian
Mon Oct 23 09:15:03 CDT 2006

OPL wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've spent a fair bit of time searching the internet for an example on how
> to bounce an email, like what MailWasher does from .NET. My home email
> server gets hit pretty badly with spam, and rather than using server
> software and risk losing email, i'd rather have some control over what gets
> deleted and bounced, and so forth.
>
> I've written a program that allows me to delete emails without downloading
> them, but can someone point me in the direction (either RFC or example) in
> any language (.NET, VB, Win32, etc).
>
> Would massivly appreciate it, ultimatley I want to write an app I can
> operate remotely etc, bust just need to work out how to bounce correctly.
>
> Thanks!

Check out RFC 821. <URL:ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc821.txt>

B.