spf-discuss
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RE: Re[5]: Lawsuits, angry business users, and SPF stupidity.

2004-01-13 09:29:31


On 13 Jan 2004 Vivien M. <spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com> wrote:

<SNIP a LOT> 
We've already had a discussion on this list about this issue, and I think
the conclusion that was reached at the time was that SPF assumes:

Of the list members as they were at the time maybe, a general conclusion 
maybe not.  

A)  Domain owners ought to be allowed to determine how their
    domain is used (for email purposes) 

All agree here.  Some users of a domain though may disagree with the 
implementation.  Generally though they would take this up with the owner 
of the domain.


B)  All "legitimate" uses of a domain are known to the domain
    owner - there is no grey area where mail is sent through
    other SMTP servers, but ought to be considered legitimate
    by the domain owner. 

Could be.  That CEO that's in another country and wants to send via 
another's equipment using his domain name may be something that would 
keep a lot of people from rejecting mail based on the standard.  I can 
see a lot of grey areas where even the owner of the domain may want to 
make an exception to what they have in the DNS.  Note this is the owner 
of the domain we are talking about, not the system admin.  ;-)  The BOFH 
have a lot of authority but when it starts to interfere with operations 
and sales they have to back off.

C)  Domain owners would not use SPF to harm their
    users/customers 

Not always a good assumption when we are talking about owners like AOL, 
RR and SBC.  They simply don't always understand the impact of some of 
their decisions.

D)  Users caught in the middle of SPF would be able to seek
    redress (eg: an SMTP AUTH relay) from the domain owner 

What about a SMTP AUTH from another SMTP host?

E)  Anyone who needs their own email-sending policy different
    from the domain owner's should be using their own domain 

Correct, if allowed by the people providing the connection.

F)  Most domain hosting (and by domain hosting, I mean DNS
    hosting, web hosting shops, etc) providers will give
    domain customers the ability to set their own SPF policy
    (as opposed to having the hosting provider set up a
    boilerplate SPF record requiring the use of the hosting
    provider's relay or something) 

Generally correct, some are less than tightly wrapped and may or may not 
provide the correct tools.
 

If you assume those three things, then SPF makes perfect sense as an
antiforgery mechanism. If, however, you believe that that some of the latter
four are inaccurate, then obviously you're going to have a lot more of a
problem with SPF. 

Anti-forgery correct.


That said, read the archives: this horse has been beaten, killed, and buried
at least a couple of times before.

But the horse is going to keep climbing back out since there are a lot of 
people that are going to be affected by how this is going to be 
implemented.  We are not talking about anti-forgery now, we are talking 
about anti-spam.  There appears to be some assumption that mail from a 
"forged" source is spam.

I see tagging mail as a forgery with it's received from a source not 
specified by the domain owner.  I cannot see rejecting mail based on this 
standard alone.


Vivien

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Thomas R. Stephenson, CPL          Phone: (408) 742-3308
Lockheed Martin Technical Operations  
MILSTAR Logistics Engineering O/M5-41  B/158
P.O. Box 61687 Sunnyvale, CA 94088-1687   

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Thought for the day:
Elvis stamp = 29>, donut = 29>. Coincidence? I think not!



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