Spam and extra MX records

[Ben Scott]

On 4/15/08, Brian Chabot <brian at datasquire.net> wrote:
> I once added an high numbered MX entry in a few domains which pointed to
>  localhost.  ... I recall someone getting a
>  bit irate about spooling my mail on a GNHLUG server till my server was
>  back up... <G>

  I got irate about *that* because you set it to *localhost*.  That
meant that when your primary server was down, I was flooded with crap
from the MTA on liberty (the GNHLUG server), since DNS was telling
liberty that liberty was a destination MX for a domain liberty knew
nothing about ("MX loops back to me").

  Any anti-spam solution which caused grief for law-abiding
netcitizens is evil.  You're punishing the good guys, while not
preventing the bad guys keep doing bad things.

>> secondary MXes have a rep for being an avenue for spam is that people
>
> Many spam systems will use a secondary MX server because lazy admins
> will put all their anti-spam measures on their primary one...

  I seem to have accidentally deleted a line from my original message,
which said what Brian said: People forget to put their anti-spam
measures on the secondary MX.

  My suspicion is that the spammers don't actually target the
secondary MXes in particular; I'm guessing they just blast spam at any
and all MXes they can find.  The secondary MXes are just noticed
because they're the ones letting the spam through.

-- Ben