Re:Complexities of e-mail validation logic
by judge2020 on Monday May 24, 2021 @11:27AM
(#27265476)
Note that you should only do this for maybe 6-18 characters, some sites will test send an email to [30-100 character random string]@example.com and see if it bounces - if it doesn't, it'll suspect that domain to be some spammer with a catch-all email inbox and block it.
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That's a terrible approach, plenty of valid, legitimate non-spamming domains use catchalls of arbitrary length for all sorts of reasons.
Additionally, sending a test email like that might also get the sender placed on a black list for triggering a spam trap inadvertently.
That's a worrying strategy because there are many reasons for using a catchall. Example: one email per site to track companies selling personal data, then maybe bounce that single email address.
Do you know any site blocking domains with a catchall?
Re:Complexities of e-mail validation logic
by LorenPechtel on Monday May 24, 2021 @12:27PM
(#27266325)
Yeah, if you have a domain of your own the sensible thing is a catchall, use a different address everywhere and block the ones that spam.
Do you know what sites do that? I have my own domain and I haven't seen anybody do that. The obvious solution is to configure your mail server to only accept usernames before the '@' that adhere to some rule which only you know. Like checking if it is a palindrome or something obscure like this.
I watch multiple corp's mail logs extensively, this is not even remotely a common thing.
Worse, I know at least 5 or 6 people personally, which do catch all. It seems like a very poor method to reliably catch spammers.