Re: MX dot was (Re: [ietf-dkim] TXT wildcards SSP issues

John Levine wrote:

> > However, I disagree with the sentiment that senders can tell
> > receivers to "kill it, don't pass it on" as expressed here.
> > This implies that senders control the threshold at which receivers
> > discard mail. I consider this unrealistic.
> I think we all agree that receivers will only do what's in their own
> self-interest, and they'll only take senders' advice if it helps that
> along.
+1

> "It's all spam" is about the simplest useful advice a (non) sender can
> give.  In my case, which I don't think is unusual, I get buckets of
> spam and blowback to subdomains that have never, ever, sent a real
> message.  The domains are the names of computers on my network, which
> were probably scraped out of usenet or mail archive message IDs.  If
> receivers were to reject or drop all mail purporting to be from those
> domains, it would be uniformly better both for the receivers (less spam,
> cheap filter) and for me (less blowback.)
+1

IMV, the bottom line is that operators or everyone for that matter, do 
not want abuse, senders and receivers.  No one is interested in stopping 
mail.  Thats no fun.
But when abuse begins, they will want help to stop or control it, and of 
course, they want to do so in a way that is 100% correct.
For us, when it comes to a base of customers who want as much help as 
they can get, lots of hand holding, automatic logic, etc, and taking on 
more and more of this responsibility, we need to ability to offer the 
options and hopefully, define the defaults, that works best for them.
It was only about 3 years ago (when I began to get involved in all 
this), that I had absolutely no interest in providing SMTP rules to 
control spam.  If the sysop wanted it outside of the basic SMTP 
protocol, he did it himself.   All we did was provide the "hooks" for 
them to do it.
But what hooks were available back them?

With the infamous SORBIG attack and the variants that followed, this 
changed every part the industry at all levels.  It put the spot light on 
the SPAM problem. People needed new regulations, new tools to help them 
control the mess, and like you said, any automated system advice they 
can get, helps the process.
You and your ASRG efforts helped tremendously to jump start ANTI-SPAM 
efforts and you should be recognized for that.
When we take away all the personalization, we all do seem to one thing 
in common:  The common goal to make sure it makes sense, hopefully make 
it as transparent as possible, without hindering the flow of "good mail."
--
Sincerely

Hector Santos, CTO
http://www.santronics.com
http://santronics.blogspot.com

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