I have no doubt that your box is getting less spam. But just look at this exerpt of /var/log/exim4/mainlog on nebka: 2008-02-25 15:32:52 1JTk0K-0003Cs-5M <= BenniemignonManning@motivateus.com H=78-3-74-131.adsl.net.t-com.hr (stepince98f3bc) [78.3.74.131] P=smtp S=2044 id=381f701c877ed$97799020$1e01a8c0@stepince98f3bc 2008-02-25 15:33:00 1JTk0K-0003Cs-5M ** krichel@openlib.org <root@authors.repec.org> R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp: SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: host snefru.openlib.org [128.252.177.195]: 550 Rejected 2008-02-25 15:33:00 1JTk0K-0003Cs-5M ** kurmanov@openlib.org <root@authors.repec.org> R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp: SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: host snefru.openlib.org [128.252.177.195]: 550 Rejected 2008-02-25 15:33:00 1JTk0S-0003Cw-J8 <= <> R=1JTk0K-0003Cs-5M U=Debian-exim P=local S=3250 2008-02-25 15:33:00 1JTk0K-0003Cs-5M Completed 2008-02-25 15:33:02 1JTk0S-0003Cw-J8 ** benniemignonmanning@motivateus.com <BenniemignonManning@motivateus.com> R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp: SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<BenniemignonManning@motivateus.com>: host emailguardian.awecomm.com [208.69.90.7]: 550 cuda_nsu 5.1.1 <BenniemignonManning@motivateus.com> User unknown; rejecting 2008-02-25 15:33:02 1JTk0S-0003Cw-J8 Frozen (delivery error message) The way I undertand the above: BenniemignonManning@motivateus.com or someone forging that address sends a message to root. That message is forwarded to krichel and kurmanov. But both reject, and the message is bounced to BenniemignonManning@motivateus.com, which rejects as well. the message is frozen. Now what if the user BenniemignonManning@motivateus.com actually existed? Then he would received message, could flag it as spam. Or his system could flag it at spam before reaching him. And where is the flagged message coming from? nebka. Christian Zimmermann FIGUGEGL! Department of Economics University of Connecticut 341 Mansfield Road, Unit 1063 Storrs, CT 06269-1063 http://ideas.repec.org/zimm/ christian.zimmermann@uconn.edu http://ideas.repec.org/e/pzi1.html On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, Thomas Krichel wrote:
Christian Zimmermann writes
If SpamAssassin would just silently delete this message, there would not be a problem.
SpamAssassin does just that, it assassinates spam. This is the way to get rid of it. Ignoring spam is not a way to get rid of it. Nowadays my boxes only get a fraction of the spam they used to get. This make the CPU time used of spam checking worth the cost.
Just put up the same scenario on nebka.
Cheers,
Thomas Krichel http://openlib.org/home/krichel RePEc:per:1965-06-05:thomas_krichel phone: +7 383 330 6813 skype: thomaskrichel