spf-discuss
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RE: Use of SPF with Shared MTAs (was Possible New Mechanism Prefix)

2004-06-28 13:53:25
From: David Brodbeck
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2004 8:11 AM

<...>

Of course, if they do start enforcing this, then people who own smaller
domains are in a catch-22.  They can't run their own MTA -- even
if they have
a static IP, often it winds up in one of the dynamic-IP blocklists, which
means a lot of sites will reject their mail.  When they complain, the
suggested solution is always to go through their ISP's smarthost,
but if that
avenue is blocked off as you suggest, what's left?  We'd be back
to the days
when small businesses were stuck having "@aol.com" addresses.

The simple answer is that whomever provides mail services to a domain
provides SMTP AUTH access to their mailer.  It's incredible that we've
allowed email to get mucked up to the degree it is today because of the
laziness/incompetence/greed (pick one or more) of hosting services that
don't provide this necessary service to their customers.  Taking a broad
view, implementing SPF and a solution to the forwarding problem is a much
larger effort than implementing SMTP AUTH, and the results won't even be as
good.  I have very little sympathy for the providers who have created the
present situation through their inaction.

--

Seth Goodman