1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
|
Remain calm! Please read all of this message before acting.
We have received mail claiming to be from your email address (see the
Subject) that our system thinks is junk mail, because it was sent to a
`spambait' address. We have therefore made an entry for you in our
blacklist which will block mail claiming to be from that address, for
a short period of time. This message has been sent automatically to
let you know.
Assuming that you are not a spammer, and do not have any email viruses
infecting your system, then your email address was blacklisted because
a spammer or virus forged the return address, using your email address
without your permission or knowledge. As well as my system's
blacklist notification you may have received a large number of bounces
(nondelivery reports and error messages) relating to messages you did
not send.
This message is sent as a courtesy to let you know that someone is
forging mail in your name. Also, we send this notification in case
you did in fact send the email in question, to let you know that your
mailing list is not properly opt-in, which would make you a spammer.
The blacklist entry will last only a short while: long enough to block
the particular spam run. So, unless you often send mail to our
system, you are unlikely to have any of your own legitimate mail
blocked. There is therefore no need to reply to this message to ask
to be removed from the blacklist.
Thank you for your attention.
Answers to common questions:
Q. Please remove me from your blacklist immediately !
A. There is no need to get yourself removed from our blacklist unless
you plan to send mail to one of our users. Our email address
blacklist is not published or used by any other system, so only
mail you send to us will be blocked. It will be less trouble for
all of us just to let the blacklist entry expire in a few days.
However, if you really insist on being removed immediately, or
expect to have to mail us in the near future, please contact us
according to the instructions below.
Q. If you think the sender address is forged, why do you blacklist me
anyway ?
A. This situation (junkmail with forged sender address) is very common
nowadays, which might suggest that it would be a bad idea to create
blacklist entries for sender addresses at all. However, since many
spammers and some viruses do still send out large runs of junk with
fixed return addresses, it is still worthwhile blacklisting the
claimed return address, if only for a short while, despite the fact
that sometimes innocent people will get blacklisted.
Q. What can I do about this outrageous abuse of my email address ?
A. In the case of spam, although in theory it should be possible to
sue the spammer, for abusing your email address in this way, in
practice finding their name and address from the available
information is often very difficult, and will involve a lot of
arguing with hostile Internet Service Providers and other unhelpful
people - and that's even before you've got to an actual lawsuit.
If you are truly prepared to go down this route, we would be very
happy to help by providing the information we have about the spam
or virus, including the exact time that the spam was received by
our system and the IP address of the machine that passed it to us
(note that usually spammers abuse ill-configured innocent third
parties' systems, so further tracing will be required).
Unfortunately this information is quite limited since we do not
keep copies of the junk mails.
In the case of a virus, the situation is even worse: depending on
your jurisdiction, and the jurisdiction of the person whose
computer was infected, you probably don't have any recourse at all.
If you like tilting at windmills you could sue Microsoft, whose
poor software is responsible for the prevalence of viruses.
Otherwise, I'm afraid, you'll just have to put it down to
experience. Write to your local legislators to urge them to pass
effective anti junk mail legislation which puts the cost burden on
the ISPs providing connectivity to spammers, and on the operators
of insecure computers which launch attacks or forge mail.
If you want to join the fight against spam you might like to start
by looking at the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email,
http://www.cauce.org/. Unfortunately there does not currently
(January 2003) seem to be a campaign fighting the root causes of
virus spew.
Q. What is a `spambait address' ?
A. A spambait address is one which is published in newsgroups, web
pages, etc., in a way that will encourage automated address
harvesters to pick it up, but with context which clearly
discourages the human reader from using the address. Whenever our
system receives a mail for a bait address it automatically
blacklists the sender.
Q. I would like to contact you to discuss your blacklisting policies.
A. Certainly. Please read the Q-and-A above, and if your question is
still not answered then you should contact us using the address
`sauce-admin' at the hostname above. Ie, replace `sauce-daemon'
with `sauce-admin'. That will bypass the blacklist.
Do not reply directly to this message, to `sauce-daemon', as such
mail is blocked or ignored.
--
|
