• =?UTF-8?Q?Re=3A_Please=2C_don=27t_reply_to_spam_--_much_less_on_lis?= =

    From John Crawley@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Fri Jun 27 04:20:01 2025
    On 26/06/2025 01:00, [email protected] wrote:
    On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 03:18:05PM -0000, Greg wrote:
    On 2025-06-24, Greg Wooledge <[email protected]> wrote:

    This like sounds like good and important advice, but how do you "bounce the
    original message"?

    By using the "bounce" feature of your MUA. Only good ones have it.

    Does that mean forward the message to the report-listspam?

    No. Forwarding and bouncing are different operations.

    One problem for the casual user is that there's bouncing and then
    there's bouncing. For most us, bouncing means that the mail server
    rejects the email.

    Yep. That's where the name comes from. It sends the mail back, with
    as much intact info as possible to allow the mail admin to debug the situation. Bouncing from the MUA does technically the same, so the
    same name is appropriate.

    https://www.activecampaign.com/glossary/bounced-email

    For those in the know like you, it means redirecting the email
    anonymously to another recipient.

    I'm familiar with the latter as an Alpine user, BTW.

    I think "bouncing" is something that should really be done on a server, not by a user email agent, even a "good" one.

    Even so, "resend" is often available, either built-in or as a plugin, using the "Resent*" fields:
    https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.6

    The Debian Wiki has these suggestions for how to deal with spam: https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ListMaster/ListArchiveSpam#nominate
    and https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ListMaster/FAQ#The_lists_are_spam-laden.2C_I_want_to_help_you

    So it looks as if resending a spam message to [email protected] is OK, although "bouncing" the message back to the server is very much not, even if your MUA can do that.

    --
    John

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  • From John Crawley@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Fri Jun 27 10:10:01 2025
    On 27/06/2025 16:13, [email protected] wrote:
    On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 10:58:54AM +0900, John Crawley wrote:

    [...]

    I think "bouncing" is something that should really be done on a server, not by a user email agent, even a "good" one.

    Why do you think so?

    At least I gave a reason why bouncing from the MUA makes
    sense, and another for why it is almost never done from
    an MTA (probably what you call "server").

    Even so, "resend" is often available, either built-in or as a plugin, using the "Resent*" fields:
    https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.6

    The Debian Wiki has these suggestions for how to deal with spam:
    https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ListMaster/ListArchiveSpam#nominate
    and
    https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ListMaster/FAQ#The_lists_are_spam-laden.2C_I_want_to_help_you

    So it looks as if resending a spam message to [email protected] is OK, although "bouncing" the message back to the server is very much not, even if your MUA can do that.

    You don't "bounce back to the server" (how could you do that?
    The server has no mail address). You send the bounce to <[email protected]>, as I stated elsewhere.

    That said, the difference between "bounce" and "resend" is
    probably minimal. I guess the spam filter training software
    will deal with both fine.

    I may be wrong here but my understanding of "bounce" is that the software responsible for delivering a message (what I referred to as the "server") decides not to deliver it, and sends it back to the original address. So not something that an MUA can (or
    should be able to) do.

    Wouldn't an attempt to "bounce" or possibly "resend" a message from an MUA need to be first accepted by the SMTP "server"? (What is the correct name for that?)

    Is a message with Resent-* fields treated as being from the user or from the original sender?

    BTW why does your message here have my email address as To:, and CC: to the list, even though I had no Reply-to: header in the message you are replying to?

    --
    John

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  • From John Crawley@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Sat Jun 28 03:10:01 2025
    On 27/06/2025 17:44, [email protected] wrote:
    On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 05:04:14PM +0900, John Crawley wrote:
    BTW why does your message here have my email address as To:, and CC: to the list, even though I had no Reply-to: header in the message you are replying to?

    Because I replied using "group reply", and your message had
    "From" from you (some lists replace that in the header, the
    Debian ones don't).

    This is a discussion topic which comes up regularly (some folks
    *hate* getting list replies addressed at them). But there is no
    nice solution for all, alas.

    Ah, OK thanks.
    I'm getting duplicate messages from some list users, but not all. I guess that means that individual users' MUAs are coming into it.

    Anyway, I'll just delete the superfluous messages.

    --
    John

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  • From John Crawley@21:1/5 to Greg on Sat Jun 28 03:20:02 2025
    On 27/06/2025 23:46, Greg wrote:
    On 2025-06-27, Greg Wooledge <[email protected]> wrote:

    Bounce can and does mean a rejection of the email by the *server*, so
    your proposal seems nonsensical or confusing, as the email has
    already been delivered to its recipients.

    I am not proposing anything. I am *explaining*.

    This is the terminology that mutt uses.

    It is not the accepted meaning of the term.

    https://github.com/mjg59/jargon/blob/master/bounce

    :bounce: v. 1. [common; perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check] An
    electronic mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification to the sender is said to bounce. see also {bounce message}.


    Mutt seems to have its own set of definitions which mutt users will need to grasp.

    Meanwhile, for people (like me) who already know that email is complicated, but would like a bit more detail, here's a page I found which explains MUA, MSA, MTA, MDA and MRA quite clearly (bearing in mind that not everything written is true):
    https://oxilor.com/blog/how-does-email-work
    and the Wikipedia:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_agent_(infrastructure)

    --
    John

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  • From Ralph Aichinger@21:1/5 to John Crawley on Sun Jun 29 12:30:01 2025
    On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 10:58:54AM +0900, John Crawley wrote:
    I think "bouncing" is something that should really be done on a
    server, not by a user email agent, even a "good" one.

    Nothing related to spam or server-side bouncing, or maybe even to the
    intended purpose of bouncing, but I absolutely love bouncing mails
    in mutt instead of forwarding. I need some mail on the address
    I use on my mobile: Just bounce it. I only do this to my own
    mail addresses.

    Am I alone in this use case of bounces? Or is this considered an
    abuse?

    /ralph

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  • From Andy Smith@21:1/5 to Ralph Aichinger on Sun Jun 29 12:50:01 2025
    Hi,

    On Sun, Jun 29, 2025 at 11:55:56AM +0200, Ralph Aichinger wrote:
    I absolutely love bouncing mails in mutt instead of forwarding. I need
    some mail on the address I use on my mobile: Just bounce it. I only do
    this to my own mail addresses.

    Am I alone in this use case of bounces? Or is this considered an
    abuse?

    I don't see how sending email to yourself can be considered abusive.

    It's rare I will use this feature any more because modern email sender authentication measures are more likely to make the mail fail to arrive.
    For example, if you receive an email that looks like this:

    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]

    and you bounce that to [email protected], it will arrive at gmail from your
    current IP address and with From: address still listed as
    [email protected]. Since your current network probably isn't authorised
    to send email for example.com, if example.com uses SPF this will be an
    SPF failure. It will also likely be a DKIM failure due to some added and changed headers. If both fail then this will additionally be a DMARC
    failure.

    In the post-SPF and DKIM world, the ways to redirect / forward emails
    have changed.

    I will sometimes use Mutt's bounce feature to re-send email that did not
    get delivered because I did something wrong. For example, if I email a
    mailing list that only allows subscribers to post to it but I use the
    wrong address, my mail is either held for moderation or immediately
    rejected. I then go into the sent folder, 'e'dit the item to have the
    correct From: address and then 'b'ounce it to the same place it was
    originally sent to. This won't be a problem because it will be using an
    address I am permitted to use from the place I am sending it from. I
    could instead do a forward but then I'd have to edit away the extra junk
    that forwarding adds.

    The number of people using email in any serious manner is dwindling and
    most users do not know anything about headers or the sender
    authentication mechanisms. I personally would not try to talk anyone
    through trying to bounce, forward or otherwise report spam in any way at
    all unless their email provider has a "report spam" button. I think
    there are too many fiddly concepts involved with a diminishing return on
    the investment of learning them.

    The Debian list archives do have a "this is spam" button on each
    message, which I think was mentioned earlier in the thread. That's worth
    using just to hopefully get the message removed from the archives.

    Thanks,
    Andy

    --
    https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

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  • From Nicolas George@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jun 29 14:20:01 2025
    Ralph Aichinger (HE12025-06-29):
    Nothing related to spam or server-side bouncing, or maybe even to the intended purpose of bouncing, but I absolutely love bouncing mails
    in mutt instead of forwarding. I need some mail on the address
    I use on my mobile: Just bounce it. I only do this to my own
    mail addresses.

    Am I alone in this use case of bounces? Or is this considered an
    abuse?

    I do that frequently too. For example when somebody wrote to me directly instead of to the service.

    Abuse is vague, but if you do not operate your own server, then this
    practice might trigger one of the ineffective anti-spam constraints that
    the oligopolistic operators are forcing on every body for other reasons
    than fighting spam.

    Regards,

    --
    Nicolas George

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  • From [email protected]@21:1/5 to Andy Smith on Sun Jun 29 14:20:01 2025
    On Sun, Jun 29, 2025 at 10:47:43AM +0000, Andy Smith wrote:
    Hi,

    On Sun, Jun 29, 2025 at 11:55:56AM +0200, Ralph Aichinger wrote:
    I absolutely love bouncing mails in mutt instead of forwarding. I need
    some mail on the address I use on my mobile: Just bounce it. I only do
    this to my own mail addresses.

    Am I alone in this use case of bounces? Or is this considered an
    abuse?

    I don't see how sending email to yourself can be considered abusive.

    It's rare I will use this feature any more because modern email sender authentication measures are more likely to make the mail fail to arrive.

    If your server does those things. Mine doesn't: I trust the users
    on it.

    [...]

    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]

    and you bounce that to [email protected], it will arrive at gmail from your current IP address and with From: address still listed as
    [email protected]. Since your current network probably isn't authorised
    to send email for example.com, if example.com uses SPF this will be an
    SPF failure. It will also likely be a DKIM failure due to some added and changed headers. If both fail then this will additionally be a DMARC
    failure.

    SPF and its ilk are quite another kettle of fish. Since it is the
    receiver who decides to act on those policies (or not), this isn't
    relevant to the case which started this thread, the spam reporting
    interface for the Debian mailing lists, <[email protected]>.
    I'd expect it to accept such bounces despite SPF failures.

    Cheers
    --
    t

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