"Friends Only"

[Matt Hampton]

Greg Borders wrote:
> Greetings list-mates,
> 
> The PHB's have discovered the ability of some mail systems that require
> you to "validate" your address before they will accept messages, thus
> avoiding SPAM.  Example, surgemail has a "Friends System"
> http://netwinsite.com/surgemail/friends.htm, and eMoustTrap has a
> package that sits between the MTA and MUA and does the authentication.
> 
> Yippie yay, now they want it too. -_-
> 
> Without wanting to spark any further heated debates on autoresponders, 
> I wanted to query the group and see if there was any slick bolt-ons for
> sendmail / MailScanner / Mailwatch out there that might take advantage
> of some whitelisting mechanisms we already have.  I can see potential of
> a custom script within MailScanner that could send a subscribe/verify
> message, and then auto-add to a whitelist upon receiving a proper
> response from the human sender.
> 

Before you go down this router - try milter-sender (or I have a perl
replacement if you are interested) which checks that the email address
is accepted by the MX's for the domain before accepting it.  I have
found a 60% reduction in crud before it gets as far as MailScanner.

I would highly recommend doing this even if you are wanting to go down
the auto responder route and I would also suggest that the auto
responder is placed AFTER MailScanner as it would ensure that the
majority of Spam is removed before sending more crap to the joe jobbed
addresses.

You will also need to ensure that the email is sent from a different IP
than your outbound email as it will only take about a week before you
will be in SpamCop.

Matt