Re: new spam functionality added

[David Masterson <dmaster@synopsys.com>]

>>>>> Simon Josefsson writes:

> (Assuming TMDA contains the part which bounces mail, asking the sender
> to answer with a cookie to deliver the mail.  That's annoying, and I
> haven't understood how two people not on each other's whitelist could
> ever communicate with each other if they both uses the scheme.

Three ways that I can think of:

1. The first person sends the second person a "dated" email address
   which allows the second person to respond within (say) 5 days
   without a cookie request.

2. The first person can generate a special email address for the
   second person that will never ask for a cookie (if it's abused, the
   address can be dropped).

3. The first person adds the second person to his whitelist before
   sending the original message.

the second person doesn't reply within the timeout period, then he's
probably never going to respond.  On the off chance that he was gone
for a long vacation, then he'll be inconvenienced by the cookie
reply, but that's a one time thing and should be relatively
infrequent.

> And it looks ugly.)

I'll accept ugly if works as advertised.  Currently, though, it's only
really useful on systems processing their own mail (as opposed to POP
or IMAP off another server).  Properly configured, it does look like
it will eliminate SPAM from your Inbox, but your computer is still
processing the SPAM.  It looks like a good option for highly connected
email servers to offer to their customers (HotMail+TMDA??).

-- 
David Masterson                David DOT Masterson AT synopsys DOT com
Sr. R&D Engineer               Synopsys, Inc.
Software Engineering           Sunnyvale, CA