hotmail’s smtp welcome message

Posted on October 25, 2008 by ward

I came across this rather nonsensical message from one of Hotmail’s MX servers:

$ telnet mx1.hotmail.com 25
Trying 65.54.245.8...
Connected to mx1.hotmail.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 bay0-mc9-f11.bay0.hotmail.com Sending unsolicited
commercial or bulk e-mail to Microsoft's computer network 
is prohibited. Other restrictions are found at 
http://privacy.msn.com/Anti-spam/. Violations will result 
in use of equipment located in California and other states. 
Sat, 25 Oct 2008 09:26:41 -0700

(newlines added to improve readability) No wonder there is so much spam on the internet. If you violate Microsoft’s antispam policy, that will result in the use of equipment located in California and other states. Oh dear. They are going to use equipment! In California! And in other states! The spammers must be really frightened now.

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2 Responses to hotmail’s smtp welcome message

  1. http://brettcsmith.org/ says:
    October 26, 2008 at 2:54 am

    I think it’s trying to tell you that you, the spammer, will be using equipment in CA and other states, and so that’s where you’ll be liable for prosecution. Or something like that. It’s not well-worded, that’s for sure.

  2. ward says:
    October 26, 2008 at 3:40 am

    That makes sense. Thanks for translating. With ‘you’ being the person who violates their antispam rules, of course :)

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