On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 16:33:38 -0700, Dan Hitt wrote:

On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 3:09 AM <tomas@tuxteam.de> wrote:

if you want to do everyone a favour, you bounce the original message
to <report-listspam@lists.debian.org> to help the list spam team train their filters (I did).

This like sounds like good and important advice, but how do you "bounce the original message"?

By using the "bounce" feature of your MUA. Only good ones have it.

Does that mean forward the message to the report-listspam?

No. Forwarding and bouncing are different operations.

Do you need to attach text to it to explain why it is spam?

No. It'll be obvious.

(Is this something i can do from gmail?)

Probably not.

If you're a webmail user (that includes gmail, hotmail, yahoo! mail,
and so on), your best bet will be to delete the message from your
inbox, and hope that someone else reports it.

If you really feel a strong need to report it, wait 15 minutes or so,
then go to the mailing list archive page,[1] and find the message there.
In the upper right corner of the message page, there's a button labeled
"Report as spam". Click that.

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 04:33:38PM -0700, Dan Hitt wrote:

Hi Tomás,

This like sounds like good and important advice, but how do you "bounce the original message"?

This is something that your MUA (Mail reader) should do. It will be different for every MUA.

I use mutt - that has got a 'bounce' command that works in much the same way as does 'forward'.

Forwarding will make the email appear to come from you. It will also change the message body to say that the message was forwarded from xxx@yyy.

Bounce does not change the message body at all; it will make minimal header changes.

Does that mean forward the message to the report-listspam?

Do you need to attach text to it to explain why it is spam?

(Is this something i can do from gmail?)

I have no idea - I do not use gmail; spend some time to see if it has the ability.

Thanks in advance for any info.

dan

--
Alain Williams
Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
+44 (0) 787 668 0256 https://www.phcomp.co.uk/
Parliament Hill Computers. Registration Information: https://www.phcomp.co.uk/Contact.html
#include <std_disclaimer.h>

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 05:44:11PM -0700, Dan Hitt wrote:

On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 4:50 PM Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> wrote:

On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 16:33:38 -0700, Dan Hitt wrote:

On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 3:09 AM <tomas@tuxteam.de> wrote:

if you want to do everyone a favour, you bounce the original message
to <report-listspam@lists.debian.org> to help the list spam team train their filters (I did).

This like sounds like good and important advice, but how do you "bounce

the

original message"?

[...]

Thanks so much Greg for your detailed reply and explanation. (Thanks also Alain for your remarks on agents and bouncing.)

So for now i'll just continue to refrain from responding to spam, and if i change mailing systems or gmail gets a bounce feature i'll try bouncing.

I tried asking a search engine how to bounce mails from gmail, since I
don't have an account with them. The results are... mixed, alas. Some
offer bouncing back "to sender" (which with spam is *ALWAYS* a very bad
idea!), some say the option is only available in the paid version (this
feels kind of right for G). Whatever.

I'd say the g in gmail stands i for "garbage" (not that hotmail and its
ilk were any better, mind you).

My take is that the Big Ones conspire (consciously or unconsciously) to
make mail less useful. Poison the well to sell bottled water.

Cheers
--
t

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iF0EABECAB0WIQRp53liolZD6iXhAoIFyCz1etHaRgUCaFuawwAKCRAFyCz1etHa RlJqAJ4yObiHnDRlTu5CizY9WklgmsrG1ACdESP+LyUqMR5u0laKjjI1oVmkdeE=
=wDQo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 03:18:05PM -0000, Greg wrote:

On 2025-06-24, Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> wrote:

This like sounds like good and important advice, but how do you "bounce the
original message"?

By using the "bounce" feature of your MUA. Only good ones have it.

Does that mean forward the message to the report-listspam?

No. Forwarding and bouncing are different operations.

One problem for the casual user is that there's bouncing and then
there's bouncing. For most us, bouncing means that the mail server
rejects the email.

Yep. That's where the name comes from. It sends the mail back, with
as much intact info as possible to allow the mail admin to debug the
situation. Bouncing from the MUA does technically the same, so the
same name is appropriate.

https://www.activecampaign.com/glossary/bounced-email

For those in the know like you, it means redirecting the email
anonymously to another recipient.

I'm familiar with the latter as an Alpine user, BTW.

Cheers
--
t

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iF0EABECAB0WIQRp53liolZD6iXhAoIFyCz1etHaRgUCaFwdFwAKCRAFyCz1etHa RnW5AJ43pmBJz8MO1GwwWvGqDqIC217sbACfachYXPyDFWGQoE49g6neO8GNp3k=
=n3UI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 11:29:23PM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:

On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 10:58:54 +0900, John Crawley wrote:

The Debian Wiki has these suggestions for how to deal with spam: https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ListMaster/ListArchiveSpam#nominate

The fourth option there says:

* Use your mail client's bounce/resend/redirect functionality to send
the spam messages to report-listspam@lists.debian.org

So it looks as if resending a spam message to report-listspam@lists.debian.org is OK, although "bouncing" the message back to the server is very much not, even if your MUA can do that.

I'm pretty sure the wiki says it's OK. I cited it right up there.

To be clear, what we're talking about here is what mutt does when you
press the "b" key. It queues up a message for delivery, where the
envelope recipient address is one that you specify by typing it in,
and the entire message (header + body) is exactly what you received,
with no modifications made by the MUA.

I have just tried this, re-sending the message to which I am replying to myself.
I do see some differences to the header, some of which will be my local MTA (exim) but I think that those added by mutt are: Resent-From: Resent-Date: Resent-Message-ID: Resent-To: If Resent-From: the message might not be delivered due to SPF issues.

2,3c2,3
< From bounce-debian-user=addw=phcomp.co.uk@lists.debian.org Fri Jun 27 04:30:24 2025
< Return-path: <bounce-debian-user=addw=phcomp.co.uk@lists.debian.org>
---

From addw@phcomp.co.uk Fri Jun 27 04:32:28 2025
Return-path: <addw@phcomp.co.uk>

5c5,14
< Delivery-date: Fri, 27 Jun 2025 04:30:24 +0100
---

Delivery-date: Fri, 27 Jun 2025 04:32:28 +0100
Received: from addw by mint.phcomp.co.uk with local (Exim 4.96)
(envelope-from <addw@phcomp.co.uk>)
id 1uUzpD-00Ewy0-32
for addw@phcomp.co.uk;
Fri, 27 Jun 2025 04:32:28 +0100
Resent-From: Alain D D Williams <addw@phcomp.co.uk>
Resent-Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2025 04:32:27 +0100
Resent-Message-ID: <aF4Qy7mLKAW3K8jw@phcomp.co.uk>
Resent-To: Alain Williams <addw@phcomp.co.uk>

25d33
< Delivered-To: lists-debian-user@bendel.debian.org
82d89
< Status: RO

Mutt calls this action "bounce", but I would not use the phrase "back
to the server" to describe it. It's more like a forwarding action,
because you're passing the message along to a new recipient.

--
Alain Williams
Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
+44 (0) 787 668

On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 10:58:54 +0900, John Crawley wrote:

The Debian Wiki has these suggestions for how to deal with spam: https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ListMaster/ListArchiveSpam#nominate

The fourth option there says:

* Use your mail client's bounce/resend/redirect functionality to send
the spam messages to report-listspam@lists.debian.org

So it looks as if resending a spam message to report-listspam@lists.debian.org is OK, although "bouncing" the message back to the server is very much not, even if your MUA can do that.

I'm pretty sure the wiki says it's OK. I cited it right up there.

To be clear, what we're talking about here is what mutt does when you
press the "b" key. It queues up a message for delivery, where the
envelope recipient address is one that you specify by typing it in,
and the entire message (header + body) is exactly what you received,
with no modifications made by the MUA.

Mutt calls this action "bounce", but I would not use the phrase "back
to the server" to describe it. It's more like a forwarding action,
because you're passing the message along to a new recipient.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 10:58:54AM +0900, John Crawley wrote:

[...]

I think "bouncing" is something that should really be done on a server, not by a user email agent, even a "good" one.

Why do you think so?

At least I gave a reason why bouncing from the MUA makes
sense, and another for why it is almost never done from
an MTA (probably what you call "server").

Even so, "resend" is often available, either built-in or as a plugin, using the "Resent*" fields:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.6

The Debian Wiki has these suggestions for how to deal with spam: https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ListMaster/ListArchiveSpam#nominate
and https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/ListMaster/FAQ#The_lists_are_spam-laden.2C_I_want_to_help_you

So it looks as if resending a spam message to report-listspam@lists.debian.org is OK, although "bouncing" the message back to the server is very much not, even if your MUA can do that.

You don't "bounce back to the server" (how could you do that?
The server has no mail address). You send the bounce to <report-listspam@lists.debian.org>, as I stated elsewhere.

That said, the difference between "bounce" and "resend" is
probably minimal. I guess the spam filter training software
will deal with both fine.

Cheers
--
t

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iF0EABECAB0WIQRp53liolZD6iXhAoIFyCz1etHaRgUCaF5EdwAKCRAFyCz1etHa RuHHAJ45xqxpAP5axdrHZ7g2eSIZCngKngCbBHHiJ3ME1YYsp7gfiT5aEHlVnu0=
=YbwN
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 05:04:14PM +0900, John Crawley wrote:

[...]

I may be wrong here but my understanding of "bounce" is that the software responsible for delivering a message (what I referred to as the "server") decides not to deliver it, and sends it back to the original address. So not something that an MUA can (

or should be able to) do.

Ah, now we are talking. Yes, sending back to the original
address was the original use of "bounce". These days you
(almost) *never* do that, because that address can be forged
and has been used extensively by spammers (since sometime
in the 1990ies!) to generate backscatter.

Wouldn't an attempt to "bounce" or possibly "resend" a message from an MUA need to be first accepted by the SMTP "server"? (What is the correct name for that?)

Yes, any mail sent from your MUA has to be accepted by the
next hop (typically a mail transfer agent, aka MTA). Some
have policies in place (e.g. the "From:" header is restricted).

This might thwart a bounce.

Is a message with Resent-* fields treated as being from the user or from the original sender?

I don't know. It's most probably in the RFC.

BTW why does your message here have my email address as To:, and CC: to the list, even though I had no Reply-to: header in the message you are replying to?

Because I replied using "group reply", and your message had
"From" from you (some lists replace that in the header, the
Debian ones don't).

This is a discussion topic which comes up regularly (some folks
*hate* getting list replies addressed at them). But there is no
nice solution for all, alas.

Cheers
--
t

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iF0EABECAB0WIQRp53liolZD6iXhAoIFyCz1etHaRgUCaF5ZywAKCRAFyCz1etHa RpVxAJ4uxbkE6ADdB/HArrJxKtrH/tAhkACff0zWKjixz6p+qLMR/SvA+eudoF0=
=fn6m
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 13:46:40 -0000, Greg wrote:

On 2025-06-27, Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> wrote:

To be clear, what we're talking about here is what mutt does when you
press the "b" key. It queues up a message for delivery, where the

Bounce can and does mean a rejection of the email by the *server*, so
your proposal seems nonsensical or confusing, as the email has
already been delivered to its recipients.

I am not proposing anything. I am *explaining*.

This is the terminology that mutt uses.

Is it confusing? Yes. Could a better word have been chosen? Probably.
But this is what they chose.

<https://mutt.org/doc/manual/#sending-intro>

Key Function Description
m <mail> compose a new message
r <reply> reply to sender
g <group-reply> reply to all recipients
<group-chat-reply> reply to all recipients preserving To/Cc
L <list-reply> reply to mailing list address
f <forward> forward message
b <bounce> bounce (remail) message
Esc k <mail-key> mail a PGP public key to someone

Bouncing a message sends the message as-is to the recipient you
specify. Forwarding a message allows you to add comments or modify
the message you are forwarding. These items are discussed in greater
detail in the next section “Forwarding and Bouncing Mail.”

<https://mutt.org/doc/manual/#forwarding-mail>

Bouncing and forwarding let you send an existing message to recipients
that you specify. Bouncing a message sends a verbatim copy of a
message to alternative addresses as if they were the message's
original recipients specified in the Bcc header. Forwarding a
message, on the other hand, allows you to modify the message before
it is resent (for example, by adding your own comments). Bouncing is
done using the <bounce> function and forwarding using the <forward>
function bound to “b” and “f” respectively.

I agree that *normally*, *for most people*, the word "bounce" in the
context of email refers to an automatically generated error message
composed by an MTA and sent to the envelope sender address of a
message that could not be delivered.

I agree that it's very confusing that mutt also chose to use the word
"bounce" to mean "forward a message with its original headers intact".

Nevertheless, that's what they chose, and that's what we're explaining
to you.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Greg (HE12025-06-27):

It is not the accepted meaning of the term.

Did you not already tell that? Was not Greg Wooledge precisely replying
to that?

--
Nicolas George

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)