spf-discuss
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Re: I seem to be trying to send out spam!

2003-10-21 09:54:38
On 21 Oct 2003, Dustin Trammell wrote:
Anthony Campbell wrote:
I have recently joined this list and apologise in advance for an
excessively basic question. I'd hoped that spf might offer a solution
for my problem but I think now that the discussion is way above my
head. 
However, if any experts here can suggest what is happening I should be
most grateful. The problem is as follows.

In the last few weeks I have found that I seem to be sending out
increasing amounts of spam, much of which is rejected. A few examples
are attached below. If it makes any difference, I am using Debian
testing, with mutt and exim4, and I have a dialup connection vie
smarthost.

What appears to be happening to you is called "Joe-Jobbing", and
essentially means a spammer is sending out spam with your address forged
as the source address.  Some of the emails go through, the rest get
bounced to the forged source address and end up in your mailbox.  

The good news is that SPF will definitely help your situation.  The
prevention of email source address forgery is one of SPF's design goals.
By rejecting email from a user at a given domain that was sent by a
server that is not authorized to send mail for the given domain, it
should effectively stop Joe-Jobbing.

The bad news is that SPF is still being designed (as you could probably
tell by the ongoing discussion) and is not widely implemented yet.
Until it is, it won't be very effective.

Stay tuned!

---
Dustin D. Trammell
Vulnerability Remediation Alchemist
Citadel Security Software, Inc.

It could be that, but I'm glad to say that I think I've solved the
problem, which seems to have been due to incorrect file settings on my
.forward file. Correcting these seems to have got things working well
again (I hope!).

Anthony



-- 
ac(_at_)acampbell(_dot_)org(_dot_)uk    ||  http://www.acampbell.org.uk
using Linux GNU/Debian ||  for book reviews, electronic 
Windows-free zone      ||  books and skeptical articles

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