[plug] re: Email rules

[Bret Busby]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2008, Gavin Chester wrote:

> 
> On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 12:56 +0900, Jon Miller wrote:
>> Like to know if anyone knows if there are rules in either Postfix or
>> SA that prevents mail from entering the system if in the headers the
>> TO: and FROM: are the same.  I seem to think that there is a rule that
>> states if the two fields has the same information and the mail
>> originated from the Internet it was to either drop of delete the mail.
>>
> So are you saying that when I send emails to a group of recipients in
> the way I described before (ie, from me to me, with them in the BCC)
> that you and others will treat that as spam? Why? I thought it good
> netiquette to do it that way and what harm could it possibly do the
> recipient since I'm not obscuring my address? I would shudder to think
> you might block ALL email that does that regardless of originating
> address :-/
>
> Gavin
>
>

As is usual with mailing lists, some people will agree, and some people 
will disagree.

I think that it is bad "netiquette" to send emails that ahow a To 
address that is the same as the From address.

About 95-99% of that type of email that I receive, are malicious.

However, unfortunately, the secretary of one organisation of which I am 
a member, uses that method for distributing email messages.

I believe and suggest that a far more responsible method, would be to 
use a mailing list; either an announce only mailing list, or a mailing 
list to which subscribers may post. It is easy enough to require manual 
approval of subscriptions.

Using a mailing list, gives a To address that is different to the From 
address, and filtering on mailing list header fields (such as the 
Reply-To address, for mailing lists where people reply both to previous 
posters in a thread and to the mailing list, making using just the To 
field, an unreliable parameter for filtering), is simple enough.

I also have family members who from time to time, use a To address of 
"undisclosed recipients". Whether they stil do that I do not know, as, 
due to the volume of malicious email messages that use that To address, 
all such email mesages are automatically deleted. That is one of the 
filters that I have set up in PINE, rather than in either postfix or 
procmail.

*** Perhaps it is procmail at which you should be looking, for 
filtering, rather than postfix, Jon? That is, if you can get the 
procmail filtering working. I have not yet been able to get procmail 
filtering working, on our mailserver.

--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
  you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
   Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
   "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
   A Trilogy In Four Parts",
   written by Douglas Adams,
   published by Pan Books, 1992

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