RE: [cobalt-users] Receive mail ONLY from specified networks?

["Dan Kriwitsky" <webhosting@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Can this kind of reverse filtering be done?  I think it can VIA
> procmail, BUT the reason for this is to claim back the bandwidth
> spammers are using.  I realize it is not much bandwidth, but its
> just the point.  I pay for my bandwidth and I don't want to
> accept a data-socket from a spammer, even if procmail is just
> throwing it to the trash!  Of course, this might be my only way
> to pull this off...
>

Procmail can accept only from specific addresses but you still get the mail
and use the bandwidth instead of the connection being refused for spamming
domains.

I recommend you turn off the @www.domain.com so it only accepts mail for
valid accounts and just change your NSI contact every 6 months or so. I've
transferred all my domains to another registrar that has much easier web
based domain administration, and is 1/2 the price of NSI. I had accidentally
left the billing contact with NSI for one domain as my old NSI contact
record. In the 5 days I had that address turned back on it got about 5 spams
a day. This was an address that was responding "user unknown" for a year.

I also only use contact forms and no email links. The forms use a modified
FormMail that has the address hard coded.

I still get spam to my old hotmail.com address that was my Internic contact
address 3 or 4 years ago. The spam has my name wrong just as it was in the
Internic records so I know from where the name was harvested. (Why spammers
think that mail with your name inserted is more palatable is beyond me. I
find it more offensive.)

Another option is a service an ISP is offering http://www.myprivacy.ca/
(It's still in BETA)
I haven't tried it as I do a lot of spam filtering based on domain names of
spammers. One good feature, the RaQ doesn't accept mail from domains that
don't exist and adding domain names of spammers like snapserver.com,
zyweb.com and many other recent spammers to my block list helps so that all
they see is:

> MAIL FROM: <snapserver@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
550 <snapserver@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>... Mail rejected due to possible
SPAM

--
Dan Kriwitsky