Remain calm!  Please read all of this message before acting.

We have received mail claiming to be from your email address (see the
Subject) that our system thinks is junk mail, because it was sent to a
`spambait' address.  We have therefore made an entry for you in our
blacklist which will block mail claiming to be from that address, for
a short period of time.  This message has been sent automatically to
let you know.

Assuming that you are not a spammer, and do not have any email viruses
infecting your system, then your email address was blacklisted because
a spammer or virus forged the return address, using your email address
without your permission or knowledge.  As well as my system's
blacklist notification you may have received a large number of bounces
(nondelivery reports and error messages) relating to messages you did
not send.

This message is sent as a courtesy to let you know that someone is
forging mail in your name.  Also, we send this notification in case
you did in fact send the email in question, to let you know that your
mailing list is not properly opt-in, which would make you a spammer.

The blacklist entry will last only a short while: long enough to block
the particular spam run.  So, unless you often send mail to our
system, you are unlikely to have any of your own legitimate mail
blocked.  There is therefore no need to reply to this message to ask
to be removed from the blacklist.

Thank you for your attention.


Answers to common questions:


Q. Please remove me from your blacklist immediately !

A. There is no need to get yourself removed from our blacklist unless
   you plan to send mail to one of our users.  Our email address
   blacklist is not published or used by any other system, so only
   mail you send to us will be blocked.  It will be less trouble for
   all of us just to let the blacklist entry expire in a few days.

   However, if you really insist on being removed immediately, or
   expect to have to mail us in the near future, please contact us
   according to the instructions below.


Q. If you think the sender address is forged, why do you blacklist me
   anyway ?

A. This situation (junkmail with forged sender address) is very common
   nowadays, which might suggest that it would be a bad idea to create
   blacklist entries for sender addresses at all.  However, since many
   spammers and some viruses do still send out large runs of junk with
   fixed return addresses, it is still worthwhile blacklisting the
   claimed return address, if only for a short while, despite the fact
   that sometimes innocent people will get blacklisted.


Q. What can I do about this outrageous abuse of my email address ?

A. In the case of spam, although in theory it should be possible to
   sue the spammer, for abusing your email address in this way, in
   practice finding their name and address from the available
   information is often very difficult, and will involve a lot of
   arguing with hostile Internet Service Providers and other unhelpful
   people - and that's even before you've got to an actual lawsuit.

   If you are truly prepared to go down this route, we would be very
   happy to help by providing the information we have about the spam
   or virus, including the exact time that the spam was received by
   our system and the IP address of the machine that passed it to us
   (note that usually spammers abuse ill-configured innocent third
   parties' systems, so further tracing will be required).
   Unfortunately this information is quite limited since we do not
   keep copies of the junk mails.

   In the case of a virus, the situation is even worse: depending on
   your jurisdiction, and the jurisdiction of the person whose
   computer was infected, you probably don't have any recourse at all.
   If you like tilting at windmills you could sue Microsoft, whose
   poor software is responsible for the prevalence of viruses.

   Otherwise, I'm afraid, you'll just have to put it down to
   experience.  Write to your local legislators to urge them to pass
   effective anti junk mail legislation which puts the cost burden on
   the ISPs providing connectivity to spammers, and on the operators
   of insecure computers which launch attacks or forge mail.

   If you want to join the fight against spam you might like to start
   by looking at the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email,
   http://www.cauce.org/.  Unfortunately there does not currently
   (January 2003) seem to be a campaign fighting the root causes of
   virus spew.


Q. What is a `spambait address' ?

A. A spambait address is one which is published in newsgroups, web 
   pages, etc., in a way that will encourage automated address
   harvesters to pick it up, but with context which clearly
   discourages the human reader from using the address.  Whenever our
   system receives a mail for a bait address it automatically
   blacklists the sender.


Q. I would like to contact you to discuss your blacklisting policies.

A. Certainly.  Please read the Q-and-A above, and if your question is
   still not answered then you should contact us using the address
   `sauce-admin' at the hostname above.  Ie, replace `sauce-daemon'
   with `sauce-admin'.  That will bypass the blacklist.

   Do not reply directly to this message, to `sauce-daemon', as such
   mail is blocked or ignored.

-- 
