About Me

PBX I'm Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using open source software, especially Django. I teach photographers web design and professional skills. In the '90s I did graphic design for newspapers and magazines. Then I wrote technology commentary and reviews for Wired, Salon.com, Chicago Tribune, and lots of little places you've never heard of. Feel free to email me.

Book

I'm co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", an excellent guide to my favorite web framework. Its strong points include an introduction to Python, and better coverage of Django 1.0 than nearly anybody else. Published by Addison-Wesley, it is available from Amazon and your favorite technical bookstore as well.

Colophon

Built using Django, served by Apache and mod_wsgi. The database is SQLite. The operating system is FreeBSD, on a VPS hosted at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet. Vintage topo imagery from the Maptech archive. The markup engine is Markdown.

Pile o'Tags

Stuff I Use

Akismet, del.icio.us, Django, dpaste.com, Emacs, FreeBSD, Freenode, jQuery, LaunchBar, MacPorts, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, SQLite, Subversion, TextMate, Trac, Ubuntu Linux, wmii

Spam Report

At least 67572 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

Email servers: how not to do it

I run my own mail server. I don't consider myself an especially skilled administrator, so I shouldn't point fingers. However, in recent weeks I've had the following experience more than once.

A delivery-failure message arrives from an unfamiliar host.
The (quoted) orginal message is nothing I ever sent.
The recipient is unfamiliar to me.
The "sender" of the original message is an email address I control, but not one I ever send mail with.
OK, so this is backscatter.
I email the postmaster suggesting they learn how to avoid sending it.
The message to the postmaster bounces back because of some server misconfiguration.

Argh! Nothing spoils the catharsis of a good complaint like a bounce.

I trust that most of these servers will disappear over time, given that they already are showing signs of neglect. So maybe that's the happy ending! A bit too deferred for me, though.

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
email + rants + spam
2 comments

Some related posts: SPF-enabled spam domains

• Comment from Mark , later that day

Mail and junk issues like this really are frustrating and there aren't any foolproof solutions considering how any fool can start their own mail server ;)

I'd recommend also sending the complaint to the netblock owner - whois.arin.net should point you in the right direction.

• Comment from Donald , later that day

We have been experiencing backscatter to our comcast email accounts. The worst part is that the edress becomes flagged as spam for legitimate emails, so they are not delivered, and email is not delivered to us. Comcast is no help. Not sure what to do.