We’ve had a feature for years in our desktop antispam product, iHateSpam, which attempts to send a fake “bounce” bounce message back to the sender.
We’ve always felt a bit concerned about this feature, primarily because it’s largely useless (what, you’re bouncing back to a spam zombie or a spoofed address?). However, it remains one of iHateSpam’s most popular features (in other words, if we took it out, there would be shrieks and howls of protest). We’ve kept it in the program but with plenty of caveats when you run it.
One purpose of this type of feature, however, is to “fake” someone with a bounce message. Sick of getting an email from someone? Send them a fake bounce.
On the same philosophy, BounceBully also promises to send a fake bounce email back to the recipient.
From Steve Bass:
The truth is that bouncing spam back to the creeps who sent it just isn’t worth the trouble. Too often the spammer’s address is bogus–and my guess is they wouldn’t take the time to remove you from their list. (“Oh, my, Steve Bass’s address isn’t working any more. I’ll just spend my time removing the dear boy.”)
But what if you have a bozo or two constantly sending you dumber-than-dirt jokes? You know, the kind you didn’t find funny even when you were in the fifth grade.
You could politely ask to be removed from their list. I usually say I use my PC primarily for work, my boss snoops in my e-mail (he probably does), and I don’t want to get into trouble.
More fun, though, is to use a program that bounces e-mail back to the putz, showing that your e-mail address no longer exists. And guess what: You can do it with BounceBully. It’s a freebie that takes the e-mail you receive and fires it back with all the right language–saying, essentially, that your e-mail address is no more.
Try it out by sending yourself a test e-mail–cut and paste the mail into BounceBully and hit Send–and see what happens.
Here’s the link:
BounceBully
Alex Eckelberry