Challenge Response Annoys People (was Re: Dear friend,)

[Nicholas Clark]

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 08:16:46PM +0100, MacGyveR wrote:

> or use one of those slightly annoying systems that the sender is requested to 
> visit a web form to validate themselves before the mail gets delivered to 
> you.

Ah yes those. I like those. I remember one that mailed me about a message I
obviously didn't send (header forging Windows worm...), then kept reminding
me periodically for the next week or so that there was this message pending,
and if I really did want it to go through I should click here or do something.

Only it didn't have an "I didn't send this" button. So in the end, to shut
up its nagging, I clicked the only button I had available.


The e-mail type can be quite effective too. At least one has managed to get
itself subscribed to perl5-porters, and then get progressively more shirty
as more e-mail arrived without hitting the "your time is nowhere near as
valuable as my time" button. The one I remember was more recent than
2003, so I guess it was someone else, not this Piers Lauder chap making a
name for himself here:

http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=YEDsYRQAAADb6vgQYX_k0enORcT6tzCioclmnHcwlcSggWEbJBWUsA


Offhand, does anyone have an exim filter/procmail/whatever recipe that can
identify challenge-response requests, and auto-acknowledge them if they
*weren't* sent by me?

Nicholas Clark