Approved (Ref: 38446-263)

[John E. Malmberg]

Martin Pool wrote:
> 
> On the upside support at microsoft.com must be getting gazillions of
> bounce messages. :-}

Unfortunately many people do that with their mail client with spam and 
worms/viruses and need to be educated that it is the wrong thing to do.

With worms and spam, the e-mail address in the from and reply to is 
almost always false, and if it exists, it is just one picked up from 
scanning the internet.

A mail administrator knows to issue a SMTP reject code to the sending 
MTA instead so that the sending MTA will do the notification correctly.

But only the Mailserver can do that.  After the mail server has fully 
accepted the e-mail, your choices are limited to blackholing the virus, 
worm, or spam or looking up the abuse address for the I.P. of the 
sending domain and send the complaint there.

Bouncing spam and worms back to the forged from or reply to headers only 
makes the problem worse.  If the address exists, the victim whose 
identity was stolen can not usually not do anything about it.

And in the case of a worm or virus, is aiding and abetting the perpetrator.

-John
wb8tyw at qsl.network
Personal Opinion Only