Hacker News Reader

I'm using something very similar, except incoming messages from never-seen-before senders are greylisted instead:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting_(email)

95% of spammers never retry.

The problem with greylisting is that it delays subscription confirmation emails when you sign up for a new service. I found that to be more trouble than it was worth. YMMV.

For a greylisting that sends 451 before DATA, that is indeed a known problem.

My server sends 451 after DATA, and keeps a copy of greylisted message, as marked-as-read entry in separate folder. Those are deleted after few hours, or moved out after a successful delivery retry.

That's a good idea. I was using an off-the-shelf greylister that didn't work that way, but I might implement that strategy now that I'm doing everything myself.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com