Well, it may be a direct quote from the spf.pobox.com page, but it is wrong and
makes an unfortunate first impression.
"SPF fights email address forgery and makes it easier to identify spams, worms,
and viruses. Domain owners identify sending mail servers in DNS. SMTP receivers
verify the envelope sender address against this information, and can distinguish
legitimate mail from ***spam*** before any message data is transmitted."
Asterisks mine.
Should read forgeries instead of spam, where the follow up will explain that
forgeries in this context means domain forgeries in email headers. Then you
have to explain how this can help with the various ills that afflict email,
because it isn't a one step process to get from the detection of domain forgery
in an obscure header to the purification of the email universe. (We've aready
had too many news articles coming to erroneous conclusions because they think
SPF is supposed to be a one step quick fix for spam.)
I expect your Perl users group contains a lot of gearheads who will want to know
the rational that takes you from premise to conclusion.
Mark Holm