incorrect spam setups cause spool messes on forwarders

Right. Assuming that the described validation scheme is, in fact,
what's being used, you'd expect Verizon's mailer to retain and cache
the validation. That way, a single 450 can be turned into a 200 series
or a 550.

As Randy said, 450 means "there's a problem here that should be fixed
soon; come back later". If it doesn't change, it's not a 450.

    --Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb

Right. Assuming that the described validation scheme is, in fact,
what's being used, you'd expect Verizon's mailer to retain and cache
the validation. That way, a single 450 can be turned into a 200 series
or a 550.

Also imagine your domain being joe-jobbed. You, as an innocent bystander,
then get hammered by Verizon as they try to do a lookup on possibly
millions of incoming mails.

It's just not a very sane way to reduce their spamload. It's something
I'd expect from a smaller ISP, but I would have imagined by now that VZ
would have the money to go with something like Brightmail, or develop
something in-house like AOL.

Charles