Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
Hence my strong suggestion that we have DESCRIPTIONS in the reverse DNS not
a list of permissions. The description of the line config is likely to be
maintained accurately. The permissions are unlikely to be set the way I
would want as a receiver and I will inevitably end up reverse engineering
them to try to uncover the reason the permissions were set that way.
Descriptions are also much better when we look for other uses of the same
information. For example my anti-phishing work. Here we would like a quick
way to work out what kind of IP address we are dealling with - knowing of
course that the information we get from any source can be wrong or even
intentionally misleading. Another example of re-use of this info would be
for other protocols like IM and video conf which will face the same spam
issues.
The rDNS-style identity can be used for many more things than simply
"MTA=yes" convention, etc. proposed in MTA MARK. It can be used as a
better alternative for DUL lists with an ability for customers to "opt
out" from a DUL list when ccepting responsibility for a given IP block
by controlling rDNS.
I think this meets all the needs that Yakov, Meng, the nanog complainer and
the users of the "Worthless Project" are seeking, and also the phishing
response teams such as ours.
To give you some context here, the biggest problem we currently face is
getting in touch with the responsible ISP when a phishing scam is underway.
This can take days if the information in the various registries is not
right. Reverse DNS is not perfect but there is a good chance it will work.
There is surely a need for better inter-ISP communications and this
might be another tool in the toolbox to help with it. However, I am
afraid that this specific forum is probably not the right one for this
since it concerns itself with peer MTAs only. However, we can carry this
discussion over to the ASRG or another forum.
Yakov
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Yakov Shafranovich / asrg <at> shaftek.org
SolidMatrix Technologies, Inc. / research <at> solidmatrix.com
"And this too shall come to pass"
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