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Old 15 Dec 2010, 03:15 AM   #59
Spamex
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 5
Quote:
Originally Posted by TimW View Post

6) Retiring: I loved this feature. It worked like this:

When I started getting spam on an Emailias DEA, I would "Retire" it by replacing it with a different address. Emailias would then do 3 things for me:

1st they would stop forwarding any email to me from the former, compromised, address and would only forward things from the new address.

2nd, whenever anyone (real person or spammer) sent anything to that address, they would get a bounced email back to their inbox with a message such as

"This email address has been permenantly retired, probably due to spam. The party can be reached by clicking on this link."

7) Ability to turn off forwarding for a DEA without bouncing the message. Emailias distinguished between 3 operational levels:

"ON" => normal forwarding email addrss,

"Off" => Valid, but not forwarding DEA. The email went off into the "Bit Bucket" and the sender would think you got it but you didn't have to read it. So, they would not stop sending you things and discontinue your account or send you snail mail saying your email address was no longer valid, etc.
This was very useful for merchants who sent regular promotional emails that I only periodically wanted to receive. For example Payless Shoe's "Buy One, Get One Half Off" 2x/yr sale. If I were looking for shoes for my children, I would turn my Payless Emailias "On", otherwise I kept it "Off". This would also be very useful for periodic or intermittant interest in an RSS or newsletter feed.

"DELETED" => This was permanently & irretrievably off & generated a bounced email message.
The problem with bouncing messages sent to 'retired' DEAs is the creation of blowback, which is mail sent to forged senders and considering that most Spam has forged senders, the ratio of blowback created for the occasional real sender it not good. Additionally, this feature would require that we 'accept' messages for retired DEAs so that we could send a response, which incurs resources and bandwith. Bit bucketing incoming mail presents the same resource issue.

When Spamex received a message to a deleted or disabled DEA, we do not bounce. We issue a 'recipient unknown' and do not accept the message at all.

If DEAs are used in such as way as to create a one to one relationship between the DEA and the party to whom it was issued, then disabling a DEA should only require the notification of a single party. It sounds like you are issuing the DEA to multiple parties, which defeats the purpose to some extent as you lose the ability to determine who compromised the DEA.
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