[philmont] Out of Office Replies

On Mon, 2007-08-13 at 22:57 -0600, Jim Moss wrote:

> Every time I post a response to the list I get several "out of office"
> replies. They are an annoyance. They are also necessary in this day
> and
> age.

Compared to most of you I know less than nothing about camping, hiking
or Philmont. I am willing to bet at 400-500 nights in the outdoors I am
barely qualified to chat with the likes of Jim about camping matters.

climbing up on soapbox

But we have just stepped into my area of expertise. Out of office
message had some limited value years ago. They still do for INTERNAL
messages in large companies. For open Internet traffic they sit
somewhere between rude and stupid. Not that this is bad, if you have
not been trained you do not know.

Let me explain.

When you get a piece of spam it is sent to millions of addresses. Some
known "good" some random. Known "good" addresses are far more valuable
as the senders know that their stuff will hit your in-box. So how to
the bad guys "know" your address is good? It used to be that if it did
not get "bounced" as bad it went thru. Then many mail admins got smart
and dropped all "invalid" messages so the bad guys have no idea if the
message is sent or not.

BUT there is a perfect solution. If you send an out of office to the
bad guys then they KNOW they have hit a good address and then they will
increase the spam to your in-box by orders of magnitude.

So the solution is to go to no-mail or do as I do and let the messages
accumulate while you are gone. But do not be rude to others or invite
more spam by using out of office.

Now as for the argument that people need to know you are away ...... if
it is important they will call or already know you are out. If not then
they will wait until you return and you can catch up then. Look at the
number of great men and women who perish every year. The world goes on.
You nor I are so important that we cannot go off the grid for the short
period of time it takes to recharge our batteries.

off soapbox

-- 
Mark Liechty MCSE, CNE, CCEA, VCP
AKA "The Computer Guy" 
MLA Computer Consulting Services 
Office 916-434-9593 
Cell 916-769-4975 
mark@mlaccs.com 
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As you gather around this virtual campfire with fellow
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