Shunting my e-mail addresses that attract spam

[Jeff]

I use one of my domains here to generate custom e-mail addresses to track the source of spam. (example: Mail from Amazon might go to amazon@domain.com) Mail from these addresses gets funneled into my catchall address. Sure enough, one of these e-mail addresses got into the hands of spammers and now gets spammed a few times each day. Since this spam is making it past the filtering, and I no longer need to communicate with the legitimate vendor, I'd like some advice about the best method here to "shunt" this particular custom e-mail address into oblivion using the Ensim mail controls. As I see it, my options are as follows:

1. Designate that address as an alias and point it to a non-existent e-mail address elsewhere so that messages bounce.

2. Designate that address as a responder and have it reply to the sender with some bounce message text.

3. Set up a spam filter for the domain that catches mail sent to this particular address. (This would be my first choice, except that it appears that the Ensim filters can only catch domains that mail comes FROM, not addresses that it is sent TO.)

What would you recommend?

[Joe]

Redirect that account to site_blackhole - it'll disappear forever :)

[eugene]

Another (more fun) idea:
Make the email bounce to abuse at the offending domain.
For example, if amazon sold your info to the spammers, then make amazon@domain.com go to abuse@amazon.com, or something similar.
I would advise that you let amazon know that you don't appreciate this email spam and inform them via email that you will just auto-forward the spam to their servers.

<grin type='mischievous'>-Eugene</grin>

[Jeff]

I like your idea Eugene. Unfortunately, the offending establishment that sold or failed to protect my address in this case appears to be a dot-com casualty, since the current site at that domain is one of those search engine placeholders. Firing spam back at the abuse address of those guys would probably only lead to my poor little domain getting a dictionary attack. (While that would give Joe's spam filter a good test, it'd also soak up my monthly bandwidth allowance in a big hurry! :) )

But... if the offender were a biggie like Amazon who oughta' know better, I would definitely consider your suggestion. 8)

BTW, in case this thread gets Google-indexed and lands on the desk of any of Amazon's undoubtedly vast squadron of legal eagles, let me state for the record that my invocation of their good name was only a hypothetical example. AFAIK Amazon is a good corporate citizen. I am happy to be a long-time customer of Amazon and I have never known them to mis-handle my personal information. :!:

[Joe]

ROTFLMAO!!!

hahahaha

[eugene]

Joe,
Are you laughing at my suggestion?

[Joe]

Joe,
Are you laughing at my suggestion?

No, absolutely not, I was chuckling at the disclaimer directly above my post -

BTW, in case this thread gets Google-indexed and lands on the desk of any of Amazon's undoubtedly vast squadron of legal eagles, let me state for the record that my invocation of their good name was only a hypothetical example. AFAIK Amazon is a good corporate citizen.

[Jeff]

ROTFLMAO!!!

hahahaha

I'm glad you liked my disclaimer, Joe. AFAIK, hostpc.com is a good corporate citizen, too! :wink:

[tnas]

Redirect that account to site_blackhole - it'll disappear forever :)

Joe, do you mean set an alias to SITE_BLACKHOLE?
ie. in ENSIM I would delete the user account, and set up an alias with the same name and external forward to "SITE_BLACKHOLE" , no @ or .com or anything?

Does the sender get any message?

[Nick]

hello tnas

yes...delete the user and add that user as an alias and external forward to SITE_BLACKHOLE

they will get a message that says something to the extent of this

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
site_blackhole
(reason: 550 5.1.1 User unknown)
(expanded from: <userdeleted@domaindeleted.com>)

[Jeff]

Hmm, so the site_blackhole solution gives the spammers feedback that the address is now no good. "Blackhole" made me think "disappearing message." Is there any way to make the offending address's messages vanish with no feedback?

[thevillageinn]

couldn't you external forward / redirect it to spamgourmet or similar? I don't believe they offer any feedback.