Spam Actions bounce

[Frank Cusack]

On December 1, 2009 3:31:50 PM -0600 Michael Masse <mrm at medicine.wisc.edu> 
wrote:
>>>> On 12/1/2009 at 12:55 PM, in message
>>>> <0720C03CCFAB190F4997642F at rdf.local>,
> Frank Cusack <fcusack at fcusack.com> wrote:
>>> > Because high scoring spam is almost certainly (depending on what you
>>> > have set as high)
>>
>> huh ... i guess as a workaround i can set the high score VERY high so
>> all spam gets classified as normal spam.
>>
>> Do you see why it doesn't make sense to not have bounce for high scoring
>> spam?  What is the difference between 9 and 10?  So I can bounce 9's
>> but not 10's?  There's no reason for the distinction wrt bounce.
>>
>> -frank
>
> It makes all kinds of sense.   Your not making the distinction between
> low scoring and high scoring spam.    Whatever you set your threshold to
> between high and low is up to you, and although you may be able to
> concoct a reason to reply back to low scoring spam, high scoring spam
> means 100% sure it's spam, therefore there is never a need to reply to
> it.

OK first of all, as I have basically acknowledged, there is never a need
to reply (bounce, DSN, whatever) to any spam, low or high scoring.  The
reason the bounce distinction doesn't make sense is because -- whatever
the threshold -- the difference between low and high is just 1 point.
Just as spam 29 is pretty much the same as spam 30, spam 9 is the same
as 10 and spam 2 is about the same as 3.  There's no reason to allow
bounce to spam 9 but disallow bounce to spam 10.

Even spam with score 1, if it is indeed spam, is still spam and is
therefore almost certainly a joe job and you should not send a reply.
(And if it's not spam it's even worse to send a reply.)

I thought it would have been obvious, but I am not sending bounce
messages to the Internet.  Ever.  That would be stupid.  Even when
virus filters (before spam filters even existed really) first came
out and sent replies I thought that was stupid even though the
"general public" obviously thought it was a good idea.  My friends
and I used to joe job each other in university days, before spam
even existed (ahh a kinder gentler time) just as a prank.  Of course
the term joe job hadn't even been coined yet.

Like I said, this is a special case.  I agree with the sentiment that
bounce is "dangerous" but I'm glad it's an option (for special use
cases) and since it is there, there's just no reason to limit it to
low scoring spam.  It's just as bad to do it for low scoring spam as
it is for high scoring spam.  Regardless of your threshold for high.

-frank