ominous error messages
When our web server fails to deliver an email, it bounces a copy of the message to me. These message failures get filed away in a quiet little corner and I look over them from time to time, to watch for any problems with the mail service. There was one message today, nothing alarming, just someone who’d mis-typed their email address into a form our our website. But the SMTP error information read as follows:
Final-Recipient: rfc822;
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: smtp;554 delivery error: dd This user doesn’t have a btopenworld.com account [0] - mta839.mail.ukl.yahoo.com
Anti-spam/. Violations will result in use of equipment located in California and other states.
Thu, 8 Jun 2006 09:05:15 -0700
So tell me, Mr Mail Server, what is this mysterious “equipment” to which you refer? And why is its location so secret?
I have visions of some terrible device dedicated to the torture of those guilty of “violation”, hidden away within the unmarked carriages of an anonymous goods train rattling across the States…
That’s one way to deal with spam I suppose.