Hector Santos wrote:
I think ideally I could see a rejection code that maybe tells the
client "No Need to Forward" a bounce. I believe that is the motive of
ADSP discard - to reduce backscattering.
Maybe a SMTP extension can do that, call it a NoBounce
EHLO example.com
250-....
250 NOBOUNCE xyz
where xyz is the optional code used to instruct the client it should
not create a DSN for an xyz rejection.
This will assist new augmented 5322 DATA processing technology to
create a NoBounce rejection without the need to do a message acceptance.
I like this better than to perpetuate ideas like discarding of mail
after message acceptance.
I don't think we can ever get back to the same level of delivery
assurance we had before all the abuse, but perhaps we can establish two
categories of mail. First class is for senders who offer robust
authentication, and maintain an A rating on reputation. Email from
these senders can be whitelisted, can expect near 100% reliable
delivery, and can be assured of getting a DSN if there is a problem.
All the rest can go through the usual spam filters, quarantine, etc.
Since ratings are done by individual receivers (or a group sharing
reputation data), the sender cannot assume his A rating will be accepted
by all receivers. There must be a way to inform a sender of a
"conditional" acceptance. Currently, we have only 250 accept or 550
reject. If you want to send a message, it has to be a reject:
Sorry! We cannot guarantee delivery of this message.
- <your domain> does not offer sufficient authentication to prevent
forgery.
- <your domain> does not have sufficient reputation for <recipient>.
We will run it through our spam filter, and keep it in our
quarantine, but the recipient may not read it.
See http://open-mail.org/rejects for help.
Perhaps we need a 350 reply code. The command is accepted, but from
this point forward, there is no guarantee of delivery. That will
certainly motivate any legitimate senders to correct whatever problems
they have in authentication.
-- Dave