Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Spoof an Email Bounce With Windows?
An anonymous reader writes "One cool feature I used on KMail years ago was the ability to generate a spoofed email bounce for any given message I had received, which claimed delivery failed because of an unknown recipient. While this doesn't exactly align with expected behaviour from a mail client, it was a useful way of easily getting off mailing lists (automated, or manually created by freaky acquaintances!). This is something I really miss, so I'm wondering if there are any mail clients for Windows that provide similar functionality?"
...or boot into Linux directly. :-P
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
Maybe you should switch back to a system that makes it easier to do more advanced types of things instead of a car with the hood welded shut.
Why don't you call Microsoft support and ask them. After all, isn't this one of the things you pay for and they are supposed to provide stellar support with?
I'm not a fan of MS Outlook, but it's integrated VBA makes writing a custom plugin easy and painless. Visual Basic in any flavor had a bad stigma, however, having a development environment right in the application is exactly what I would think would solve your problem effectively.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Doesn't KDE run on Windows these days? You could probably just run KMail directly...
#!/bin/csh cat $0
so you went from Linux to Windows???
Or he could just fucking Google it like a literate non-helpless person.
If you don't speak SMTP as a second language you probably shouldn't have that feature.
*grin*
Not even a 550 SMTP session will get you off most mailing lists because, even if it is a legitimate list, the marketers are too aggressive to care. Also, a NDR after a successful session will likely go to either an unmonitored mailbox, a hapless user who won't understand it, or null. Weed through some email logs and you'll see. I see some lists that have been emailing the same address for ten years and I always disconnect with a 550. That said, try Pegasus Mail. I find that it does almost anything.
Eudora had this feature in the past, so you might want to look at it and see if it still does.
http://eudora.com/
It's apparently open source now, so if you could add this feature if it doesn't exist.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/mail-redirect/
yes... exactly, simply script it...
why not just build it yourself and publish it...
even outlook has scripting ability and hooks
maybe this is what you need :
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/mail-redirect/
or you could add to it...
regards
John Jones
While the spammy advertisement would normally warrant no attention, it does raise a point that is worth noting:
Because the from address is invariably forged, you do nothing with a bounce. In fact, it's worse than nothing, because you create backscatter. I have suffered from backscatter and it is a pain - it just multiplies the spam problem. So, could I request that you just stop it!
Mailwasher has that feature, plus a few more. http://www.mailwasher.net/
Kmail may have offered a bounce function, but this would not get you off spam lists. Just about every spam message is not from the domain the sender in the envelope claims to be from. You are sending a pointless message to the domain being fraudulently used. E.g. you get a spam "from" mydomain.com, you bounce back, mydomain.com didn't actually send the message but now has to deal with your junk response.
Because the from address is invariably forged, you do nothing with a bounce. In fact, it's worse than nothing, because you create backscatter. I have suffered from backscatter and it is a pain - it just multiplies the spam problem. So, could I request that you just stop it!
If you actually know the person who is sending you the email then you should try a more personal approach rather than a passive aggressive bounce.
Really those are different.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_delivery_report
Yours,
ac
alpine is also truly free software now.
FYI, alpine was pine. UW forked it, added a better build system, put it under a new license, released it as alpine, then discontinued development. The community has taken that and created the re-alpine project on sourceforge, where you can find the latest version. re-alpine
Development continues, but isn't exactly what I'd call "active". But it's an ancient email client, and there's really not all that much that could be added. I still find it indispensable and use it constantly and I'm quite happy with it.
You never said you needed a windows-like UI, so this qualifies for the request, but YMMV.
Since there hasn't been an "Ask Slashdot" that actually resulted in anything but a fucking e-penis flamefuckfest, how about you just eliminate the fucking thing altogether?
When you generate these faked bounces they are generated through your receiving mail server. Invariably, some of those bounces go back to spam trap email addresses that are used in forged headers, causing your ISP's mail server to be black listed.
I have plugged in a customer 'milter' in our mail server to block this 'feature' from working. (bounces that the server doesn't create get routed to /dev/null.)
Mailwasher does it. Can do it automatically so you won't even see it. But not free. http://tinyurl.com/6fprnb9
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
At least since KDE 4, and from what I recall, maybe 3.4 or even 3.3, this feature was dropped.
Your time to bitch about it? That would be thataway.
I just setup a mail template that essentially says "Undeliverable" and then setup a mail filter to auto-respond with that template if a certain person emailed me.
The text of the message is:
Your message to:{your email}
Was undeliverable. No further diagnostics available.
MTA-Intermail550
That last part, my provider uses Intermail so I looked up it's error codes and just used the 550 message.
I own a domain of (for example) example.org that I have wildcarded to my INBOX. I get A LOT of all sorts of interesting misdirected emails meant for exampleinc.org and example.org.au including invoices, meeting confirmation messages, and frantic "why aren't you answering my email messages"
In Mail.APP on the Mac I used to do a bounce and they'd see that they screwed up and stop. If I send a personal email explaining often people go ape shit and get paranoid wondering why I am reading their email. (Unfortunately Apple removed that functionality as well)
So sometimes a more impersonal response IS better.
ps, yeah, I know, I could fiddle with my MTA and have it refuse the repeat offenders.... and I do now. Not as convenient though.
Mailwasher Pro used to do this too...http://www.mailwasher.net/frequently-asked-questions
There is a free version and paid version..
GOOD LUCK.
I doubt if it'll get you less spam, but manually bouncing mail is one of the many standard features of the Fastmail webclient. Runs on any platform that has a web browser.
I use it occasionally to get rid of humans...
Apple pulled this from Mail with Lion for that reason. Spammers don't really care if your email is real or not. At least not much.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
How does getting your email client trying to spoof a bounce, help when the upstream email server has ALREADY accepted the email as legitimate for delivery? As another user noted, your creating backscatter, and any email systems using basic SPAM filtering, will automatically drop the email from you.
Mail Washer allows you to view messages while they are still on the server, and delete them without actually downloading the entire message. It does have the ability to send a "spoofed" bounce message. I use the free version: http://www.mailwasher.net/
A shitty but nice-looking car that's a death trap courting young "men" with dicks for brains on one side and on the other side a third-hand junkyard item?
Next time your car analogy should include a simile for Linux (or other F/OSS OSes) and not two for Windows :)
I'll suggest a Ferrari that's actually a nano-assembler and which will transform itself into a spaceship or highly experienced concubine at your whim.
As an example never underestimate the power of the trivial: I was overjoyed when in a tricky situation I used the quick & dirty solution of sending one-way mail from an otherwise isolated, hardly configured, and minimal install OpenBSD box to my Google mail account simply using nothing but my invalid domain name/DNS entry/address on the OpenBSD box and 'mail -s "blabla" ******@gmail.com blablabla"'. Sure it goes straight to the spam folder (as it should) but anyone can fix that on the Google side of things. Such a trivial thing saved me oodles of time and work in that singular specific instance. Doubt I'll ever have to do it again but such trivial power reigns supreme.
You can just use kmail on windows...
I downloaded Bounce Spam quite a few years ago. I might have been still using Windows 95 at the time. I use it now with Windows XP. This is freeware by Albert Yale. A Google search on "Albert Yale" and "bounce" will result in several download sites.
I do NOT use Bounce Spam for actual spam for two reasons. First of all, the From or Reply-to address in spam is often the address of some unfortunate innocent person; I do not want to flood such individuals with my faked bounce message. Then, my ISP has very effective anti-spam controls on its POP incoming E-mail server.
I use Bounce Spam to return messages to foul individuals who are angry about what they read on my Web site. Those individuals do not realize they can disagree without being disagreeable. They are exceptionally disagreeable.
If you're counting on an automated process to handle your forged bounce, it probably won't work. In a strict sense, bounces sent with a non-empty Return-Path are incorrect and unless you're running your own SMTP server, you probably won't be able to send mail with an empty Return-Path header.
If you're counting on a manual process to handle your forged bounce, I admire your faith in humanity.
The reasons this misfeature has become less common in MUA's over time are that it is fundamentally fraudulent and that it doesn't really work. Spammers who use their own working return path addresses are far more likely to have working unsubscribe mechanisms than they are to have working mechanisms for handling asynchronous bounce messages. That's because in many places (including the USA) unsub mechanisms are legally mandated, but bounce handling is not required and is an inherently hard problem. As a result, there are legally compliant spamming operations like Constant Contact that have fully functional unsub systems and that deal with standard 5xx responses to the RCPT command in SMTP properly, but which basically ignore asynchronous bounce messages and error responses at other points in SMTP.
I would use that feature to get off of annoying coworkers/distant family members email lists.
I dont know how they got my email address in the first place but they will damn sure forward everything they can to me.
Can't say the client doesn't have a nuisance factor but it does have a bounce function.
this feature still exists in the trinity version of kmail
Just attach your Windows machine to the internet. Someone will probably install this feature automatically for you, along with thousands of others. And you won't have to lift a finger. You will get automatic email processing software, beowulf features, anatomically correct photos, keyboard monitoring, credit card reporting, and thousands of other useful features. 5 minutes it all it takes.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Do what I do... It seems to work for the most part... I just wave my hand across the front of the monitor and say, "This is not the email you are looking for. You can go about your business. Move along now."
I swear it really works. Pass along this advice to 10 friends and Bill Gates will give you an allowance commenurate with a percentage of some sort of whacky pyramid scheme that only works with MS Outlook, Outlook Express, or MS Mail.
They track down the sending server and blacklist it.
It won't get you off maillists. It will just generate backscatter spam.
It's easy for someone who gets one of these fake bounces to tell it's not a real MTA generated bounce.
This feature was removed from most mailers for a reason - it doesn't work.
the e-mail headers will give away, that its not a real bounce. Then the spammers even know "ah, this e-mail address is active, somebody thinks its worth to send fake-bounce mail"
...has this got to do with apple? Slashdot is going downhill. I'm outta here.
Who is the bounce going to? Once the original piece of mail has been delivered to you, you might not have the envelope from address anymore, so you might use the From header? However , either from address could be forged and your bounce has just spammed some unsuspecting person unlucky enough to have the spammers use their email address as the from address in their mailings.
Dont be an idiot. This functionality doesn't exist anymore for a reason.
http://spamlinks.net/prevent-secure-backscatter-fake.htm
mailwasher does this quite nicely. it even integrates with spamcop.
http://www.mailwasher.net/
there is even a free (as in beer) version.
Why wouldn't you just set up a client rule to mark the message as read and automatically delete it? That way, there's no potential of backscatter and you're not bothered by spam or unwanted forwarding. As I understand it, most mail clients are able to automate this process.
This may not work for your particular application, and if this is the case you are free to disregard.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
I resolved this by a different path. As noted, a rejection notice will not really help you with the spammers.
What I did was to enable the Catch-All alias on my mail server so that you can send email to any address on my domain and I'll receive it. I never give out my actual mail box. When I do give out my email address, I tag it with the site I'm giving it to. For example, somedomain.com@example.com. Now, if I get stuff to that address promising me greater manhood, I can create a mail forwarder to send subsequent spam to their sales or support address, ie sales@somedomain.com. end of spam.
Best part, I don't have to depend on the OS or email client features for it to work.
Have you never heard of Mailwasher???
Relays (MTAs) bounce/reject mail. Mail clients (MUAs), do not. You can't do this.
If you want to, you must run your own mail server. Then it is trivial. I personally use MimeDefang for such things, but you can also do it directly from sendmail's configuration without resorting to miltering.
If you don't have a clue about what I am talking about, then you need to just hire somebody to do what you want, because these are very basic mail concepts.
http://en.kioskea.net/contents/courrier-electronique/fonctionnement-mta-mua.php3
I just add them to a blacklist. It's a more permanent solution.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
which is to say: your method depends on a person receiving the response, noticing it, parsing it properly for your email address, and then remembering to delete it from their address book/list of remembered email addresses.
which is to say that it doesn't really work.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll