Marketers. Exes. Bosses who somehow got ahold of your personal email address. Sure, you could make a filter or click ‘report spam’ (as if that actually does anything…), but wouldn’t it be better if they just stopped emailing you altogether?
Oh, they will now. Check this trick out:
Have you ever emailed someone and gotten that “Delivery Permanently Failed” bounceback from some mailer-daemon? Here’s how to make the daemon (whatever the hell it is) work for you.
Here’s how you do it:
1. Hit Reply.
2. Edit the subject line by adding the words DELIVERY FAILURE: ahead of the original.
3. At the top of the body, simply paste in the quoted text below.
4. Enjoy your life.
MAILER-DAEMON: DELIVERY HAS PERMANENTLY FAILED TO THIS RECIPIENT OR DELIVERY LIST.
An error occurred while trying to deliver this message to the recipient’s e-mail address. Microsoft Exchange will not try to redeliver this message for you. User does not exist.
Sent by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
Diagnostic information for administrators:
Generating server: corporate.dmgt.net
HSJFK-EXWT-W0V1V-S.corporate.bzqt.net #550 … No such user ##
Original message headers:
Received: from mail66.besmt5.meqlabs.com (10.181.104.248) by
HSJFK-EXWT-W0V1V-S.corporate.dzzgt.net (10.195.2.137) with Microsoft SMTP Server
(TLS) id 8.3.274.0;
Received: from [208.93.140.190:44031] by server-5.bzgmt-5.meqlabs.com id
FB/48-17252-2A7230FG4;
X-Msg-Ref: server-136.tower-425.meqlabs.com!345832498624!11005757!1
X-Originating-IP: [184.154.123.70]
X-SpamReason: No, hits=1.2 required=7.0 tests=HTML_20_30,HTML_MESSAGE,
RCVD_BY_IP
X-StarScan-Version: 6.4.3; banners=-,-
X-VirusChecked: Checked
Received: (qmail 22800 invoked from network);
Received: from mail-hw0-f34.gaole.com (HELO mail-hw0-f34.gaole.com)
(289.25.986.44) by server-136.tower-425.meqlabs.com with RH6-ZRA
encrypted SMTP;
Received: by qfadb12 with SMTP id c14sb9234843qxh.20
Received: by 173.193.156.78 with SMTP id fdsalkf293238hj2.30.11349182363705;
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 174.120.168.2195with HTTP;
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=”20cf385fc2b644bb8314b59ggbc0″
We’ve taken the liberty of scrambling all of those numbers, server names and such, so none of the above is traceable. We’ve also deleted any reference to dates or email addresses so it can be used by anybody at any time. Yes, a very savvy IT professional will probably see through it. The other 99.95 per cent of the population will think your email address no longer works and probably won’t send you anything again. You win.
Let us know in the comments how you plan on using this. And if you ever email us and get something like this back, well, uh… gotta go! Bye!
Image: Shutterstock/ Pablo H Caridad, ayzek, bioraven
Ollie
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 10:40 AM…except for the fact that it’s bounced back from your email.
Sure most people are dumb, but I think it’s a 50/50 whether it works or not.
Barry
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 10:55 AMI can say from experience that this doesn’t always work. Most systems in Australia that are being used like Vision6 and others don’t delete or stop sending when they receive a bounce back message, they keep sending and sending. Best thing to do is to get the person or yourself taken off the list or report it as SPAM.
By Australian Law, every Email that is sent to anyone MUST have a report as SPAM function and a unsubscribe link, either web or Email. If it doesn’t have the unsubscribe link the sender can be fined.
Will
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 2:28 AMCheck your facts. This law applies to automated advertising emails not every email.
macdave
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 12:30 PMI’m going to try this with Department of Finance and Deregulation emails,
Aaron
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 12:53 PMUse Mailwasher. Does this automatically and can even report spam
Nicholas
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 3:38 PMDon’t scramble too hard.. second last line:
Received: by 174.120.168.2195with HTTP;
IPs don’t go that high XD
Dave Lord
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 2:52 AMThis is not a good idea. Most Spammers spoof the email address they are sending from. So if you reply with this message, chances are you are bugging an innocent party.
Mac Mail had a “Bounce” option that did exactly what is described above. It has been removed in Lion.
Many Spammers have the technology now to detect whether the message has got past the receiver’s mail server, so any sort of reply is futile.
Here is my SPAM strategy:
No SPAM filters until after all mail has reached my inbox. The best Spam filter is the delete button.
Do not publish any email address without obfuscation. Never display your email address on the web for all the world to see. Use a web form. Alternatively, hide the address as an image, or behind javascript.
Report ALL SPAM originating in Australia to the ACMA. Just forward it to: report@submit.spam.acma.gov.au. Sending SPAM is illegal in Australia. It only takes a few seconds to forward an email. The more people who report SPAM from a sender, the faster ACMA takes action.
Do not use your real email address on dodgy websites. Use a disposable address, for example: http://www.guerrillamail.com/en/
This will take time to be effective, but it has worked for me. I now only receive about 20 – 30 SPAM per day. Most of those are caught by the Mac SPAM filter. It takes a couple of seconds to empty my SPAM folder.
I can live with that.