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Updated information at: Classic Linux.

Also please see: https://discourse.rahul.net/.

(Note: This is an outdated spam-fighting technique. For all new mail, we highly recommend that you create new email addresses as needed using hypheneted suffixes. You can then stop using an email address that begins getting too much spam.)

Most junk email companies search Usenet and various portions of the Internet, such as web pages, to collect email addresses. Strategy A involves your providing a special email address in such places. This email address can be any of these:

 <username>@nojunk.rahul.net
 <username>@ether.rahul.net
 <username>@network.rahul.net
 <username>@spams.r.us.com
 <username>@<machine>.boxmail.com
 <username>@email.rahul.net          <-- ultrafiltered -- see notes below

where <username> is your shell login name at a2i and <machine> is an imaginary machine name of your choice (containing alphabetic, numeric, and hyphen characters). For example, if you normally log in as joeuser, your Strategy A email address might be any of these:

 joeuser@nojunk.rahul.net
 joeuser@ether.rahul.net
 joeuser@network.rahul.net
 joeuser@email.rahul.net             <-- ultrafiltered -- see notes below

 joeuser@spams.r.us.com

 joeuser@mercury.boxmail.com
 joeuser@joeuser.boxmail.com
 joeuser@spam-me.boxmail.com
 joeuser@no-spam-please.boxmail.com

Good places to use this email address are in the From: line in Usenet postings and in web pages.

When incoming mail arrives for any address of the forms described above, the Nojunk software at a2i checks any To: and Cc: lines in the incoming message. If the destination address is found in one of these, the message is delivered normally to you. If the destination address is not found in a To: or Cc: line, the Nojunk software assumes that a mailing list of some type was used, and bounces the message back to the sender with an explanation, and an invitation to resend the message directly to you.

Special note regarding 'email.rahul.net'. In addition to the normal checking of To:/Cc: lines, addresses of the form <user>@email.rahul.net are also ultrafiltered to block spam, by the use of a number of other aggressive filtering techniques, including:

* Strict checking of the format of mail headers.

* Blocking of mail that is relayed through misconfigured machines, by consulting various black lists on the Internet.

* Strict checking of the host name of the machine transferring the mail to our machines.

Where to use Strategy A: You should publish your Strategy A email address only in noncritical places. It would be unwise to use a Strategy A email address in places where it would be used for sending email individually to you, for example, as a reply address in outgoing mail, or in .signature lines at the end of outgoing email, or on a business card. Also, it would not make sense to subscribe to a mailing list using a Strategy A email address, since all mail from the mailing list to you will bounce back.

Note. Strategy A was very effective when it was first made available. Spammers have become much smarter since then, and their spam software sends large volumes of email with each message directly addressed to each recipient. This has made Strategy A (except for the email.rahul.net domain) much less useful.

Where Strategy A mail arrives. All mail arriving for a Strategy A email address will reach your old mailbox, unless you explicitly forward it either via a .procmailrc file or a .forward file.