Why don't I get addess-not-found message when I send to a invalid email address?

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
38,802
8,950
136
Occasionally I send an email to an entity whose existence I'm not sure of - maybe it's an old address, maybe it's hard for me to determine their address... some kind of uncertainty. I used to get emails to me when an email couldn't be delivered for whatever reason - invalid domain, address no longer exists, whatever. I'm with SBC and I am in the pacbell.net domain. My email client is Forte Agent 1.93/32.576.

To test my theory (that I don't get those messages anymore) I sent an email yesterday to bogusperson@bogusaddress_49299.com. That, surely, is bogus. I got no return message. What could be the problem? Obviously, this is a problem. I am using Mailwasher and I looked through my blacklist and couldn't see anything that would weed out the messages I'm looking for. Any ideas? Thanks!
 

mparr1708

Senior member
Jan 5, 2005
258
0
0
Originally posted by: Muse
Occasionally I send an email to an entity whose existence I'm not sure of - maybe it's an old address, maybe it's hard for me to determine their address... some kind of uncertainty. I used to get emails to me when an email couldn't be delivered for whatever reason - invalid domain, address no longer exists, whatever. I'm with SBC and I am in the pacbell.net domain. My email client is Forte Agent 1.93/32.576.

To test my theory (that I don't get those messages anymore) I sent an email yesterday to bogusperson@bogusaddress_49299.com. That, surely, is bogus. I got no return message. What could be the problem? Obviously, this is a problem. I am using Mailwasher and I looked through my blacklist and couldn't see anything that would weed out the messages I'm looking for. Any ideas? Thanks!

Its actually not a problem. Its the way SMTP mail works. The mail is released from the server and from that point the server cares not where it ends up. The only way you will get an error message is if the domain (the part after the "@" microsoft.com is a domain for instance) actually exist but the address is not valid. Even then you can configure you amil servers to not send an NDR (Non-delivery report).

 

spidey07

No Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
65,469
5
76
True. Many e-mail servers won't send a kick-back message.

Think about it? I want to DoS a e-mail server. What can I do? Flood it with bogus names or bogus domains. Not only does it have to perform all that work, it has to send e-mail to each and every bogus attempt I pound it with.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
38,802
8,950
136
Hmm. Well, maybe it's a configuration issue with my ISP then. I can understand, now that you mention it, that I wouldn't get a message when the domain is invalid. But I'd hope to get a message when the domain is valid but the addressee is invalid. That way I'd know that the party didn't get my email and not have to wonder why I didn't get a reply. I'll check out my settings at SBC, or maybe call them.
 

GeekDrew

Diamond Member
Jun 7, 2000
9,099
19
81
Originally posted by: Muse
Hmm. Well, maybe it's a configuration issue with my ISP then. I can understand, now that you mention it, that I wouldn't get a message when the domain is invalid. But I'd hope to get a message when the domain is valid but the addressee is invalid. That way I'd know that the party didn't get my email and not have to wonder why I didn't get a reply. I'll check out my settings at SBC, or maybe call them.

While some people have disabled bouncing on failed addresses, I don't believe that most servers have - I've not stumbled upon one in which it is disabled, and I've sent quite a few misaddressed messages in the last few months. Your mailserver is the one that would respond if a domain is invalid, as it would not be able to process the outgoing message... but if it locates an MX record for the domain in question, and that server accepts the message, your mail server couldn't care less about what happens to it.

That said, most remote servers also bounce messages when addresses are incorrect, but not all do so.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
38,802
8,950
136
I discovered that I was getting bounces with my Mailwasher 1.33 freeware closed, but not with it open. Digging into Mailwasher's blacklist I found that MAILER-DAEMON@aol.com was on my blacklist and I deleted that entry. I had sent a bogus email to a pacbell.net bogus person and oddly gotten a bounce from MAILER-DAEMON@yahoo.com. Not so with Mailwasher open, and sure enough MAILER-DAEMON@yahoo.com was on Mailwasher's blacklist and I deleted that. I decided to put MAILER-DAEMON@* on my friends list. I would think this wouldn't have negative repurcussions and it will assure my getting bounced emails as long as the return addresses match the skeleton.

Edit: Looking, I see that all manner of MAILER-DAEMON entries are in my blacklist but the wildcard in my friends list should trump all of those. I wonder how all those blacklist entries got there! :confused:

Edit: Oddly, I'm finding that the blacklist is taking precedence over my friend's list in Mailwasher! That wasn't my previous experience, IIRC. Well, I deleted each and every MAILER-DAEMON entry in my blacklist and expect I'll be OK now...:frown:
 

GeekDrew

Diamond Member
Jun 7, 2000
9,099
19
81
Originally posted by: Muse
I discovered that I was getting bounces with my Mailwasher 1.33 freeware closed, but not with it open. Digging into Mailwasher's blacklist I found that MAILER-DAEMON@aol.com was on my blacklist and I deleted that entry. I had sent a bogus email to a pacbell.net bogus person and oddly gotten a bounce from MAILER-DAEMON@yahoo.com. Not so with Mailwasher open, and sure enough MAILER-DAEMON@yahoo.com was on Mailwasher's blacklist and I deleted that. I decided to put MAILER-DAEMON@* on my friends list. I would think this wouldn't have negative repurcussions and it will assure my getting bounced emails as long as the return addresses match the skeleton.

Edit: Looking, I see that all manner of MAILER-DAEMON entries are in my blacklist but the wildcard in my friends list should trump all of those. I wonder how all those blacklist entries got there! :confused:

Some bounces also come from postmaster@*, though most come from MAILER-DAEMON.

As for why you got a response from Yahoo... that's because Yahoo powers the SBCGlobal (including SBCIS) mail servers, which includes pacbell.net, if I recall correctly.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
38,802
8,950
136
Originally posted by: GeekDrew
Originally posted by: Muse
I discovered that I was getting bounces with my Mailwasher 1.33 freeware closed, but not with it open. Digging into Mailwasher's blacklist I found that MAILER-DAEMON@aol.com was on my blacklist and I deleted that entry. I had sent a bogus email to a pacbell.net bogus person and oddly gotten a bounce from MAILER-DAEMON@yahoo.com. Not so with Mailwasher open, and sure enough MAILER-DAEMON@yahoo.com was on Mailwasher's blacklist and I deleted that. I decided to put MAILER-DAEMON@* on my friends list. I would think this wouldn't have negative repurcussions and it will assure my getting bounced emails as long as the return addresses match the skeleton.

Edit: Looking, I see that all manner of MAILER-DAEMON entries are in my blacklist but the wildcard in my friends list should trump all of those. I wonder how all those blacklist entries got there! :confused:

Some bounces also come from postmaster@*, though most come from MAILER-DAEMON.

As for why you got a response from Yahoo... that's because Yahoo powers the SBCGlobal (including SBCIS) mail servers, which includes pacbell.net, if I recall correctly.
Thanks. I just added a wildcard expression in my friends list: postmaster.*

As I edited above (you probably missed it) I am finding that the blacklist entries are taking precedence over my wildcard entries in my friends list. I didn't think Mailwasher worked like that. So, I deleted all those entries in my blacklist. I wonder what's up with that...

Edit: Yes, I remember now some affiliations going on between SBC and Yahoo. Things were a lot simpler when it was just pacbell.net. They still let me have that domain name, but there's a bunch of other stuff going on. It's not too clear to me. I didn't let them strong arm me into using their proprietary browser! I used to get a lot of email from SBC that tried to coerce me into that stuff. No longer, though.