spf-discuss
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Re: [SPF v1 Draft] Last chance before I submit...

2004-10-12 06:12:39
Hello!

On Mon, Oct 11, 2004 at 11:59:57PM -0700, Mark Lentczner wrote:
[...]

4) Kept the "Domains SHOULD publish ... -all" language.  Whether or not 
this is where SPF can or should go, it seems clear that this was the 
original intent of SPF v1.

At least as long as the forwarding problem isn't really solved, I'd
prefer a weakened language compared to "SHOULD".

And current practice seems to be just that, cf. for example
host -t txt aol.com
aol.com text "v=spf1 ip4:152.163.225.0/24 ip4:205.188.139.0/24 
ip4:205.188.144.0/24 ip4:205.188.156.0/23 ip4:205.188.159.0/24 
ip4:64.12.136.0/23 ip4:64.12.138.0/24 ptr:mx.aol.com ?all"

(see, "?" before all instead of "-", ebay uses "~" instead which also
seems to make some sense)

And SRS isn't a completely good solution because of length problems,
just try rewriting addresses like
  Michaela(_dot_)Musterfrau(_at_)stud(_dot_)uni-karlsruhe(_dot_)de
(which would be a realistic example, the University of Karlsruhe uses
that format of mail addresses and we do have that long given names and
surnames in Germany occasionally), which would yield
  
SRS0=abcd=ef=stud(_dot_)uni-karlsruhe(_dot_)de=Michaela(_dot_)Musterfrau(_at_)srs(_dot_)kundenserver(_dot_)de
(local part 54 characters) and
  
SRS1=xyza=srs(_dot_)kundenserver(_dot_)de==abcd=ef=stud(_dot_)uni-karlsruhe(_dot_)de=Michaela(_dot_)Musterfrau(_at_)srs(_dot_)sonstwo(_dot_)domain
(local part 80 characters!), according to the SRS paper found under
  http://www.libsrs2.org/srs/srs.pdf

So how should we solve these problems, for example with we as in a
company providing large scale mail services, so alternative rewriting
mechanisms, using random tags and a database, aren't viable for us?

Kind regards,

Hannah.