Flashes of Panic

Another thing that’s wrong with spam: the lists are bad. One of the bits of data coming from Logwatch is what addresses we reject mail from, and how often. Yesterday, we rejected 24 attempts to send mail to an address belonging to an editor who left nearly a year ago.

Sure, after getting enough 500 errors (in email, error numbers in the 500 range mean, “It’s permanently broken, give up,” as opposed to 400 errors, which suggest, “Try back later”) eventually the spammer might weed this out of their list, but by that time they will undoubtedly have spread it to other lists, far and wide. I can fully expect to be bouncing spam for this former employee as long as I’m with the company.

More recently, a copyeditor left. One of her email addresses was her first name, the predictably common “Jennifer.” We bounced 77 messages “for her” yesterday. I can only offer my sympathy if we ever hire another Jennifer.

Now playing: Saddle Up from Let It Rock: The Best of the Georgia Satellites by The Georgia Satellites