-----Original Message-----
From: owner-spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com
[mailto:owner-spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com] On Behalf Of Greg
Connor
Sent: vrijdag 19 november 2004 7:39
To: spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com
Subject: RE: [spf-discuss] Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF) Article OnAnti-Spam Technologies Mentions SPF
The problem comes when you're dealing with large
organizations where some IT department (or ISP helpdesk)
sets a -all policy, and you're too far down on the
organizational hierarchy to do anything about it. (If you're
the CEO, you can call up the IT manager and be like "WTF is
this SPF crap that prevented me from sending email from
the golf course?!?!? I WANT IT GONE NOW")
I think it's been said before, but such an IT organization would be
irresponsible and recklessly incompetent. Not saying that's
impossible -- of course there are IT organizations that don't do their
jobs. They would be guilty of not doing their jobs correctly if they
restricted you from sending and then didn't give you a way to send
stuff that is supported.
Exactly. If "you're too far down on the organizational hierarchy to do
anything about it," then the same argument shows that only a senior
administrator can make changes to the company DNS. So, whereas some
ignorance in the lower ranks is pardonable, the higher up the chain, the
more reasonable it becomes to expect a senior network administrator to
know what he is doing. The ISP helpdesk folks write a ticket, and escalate
DNS matters to the network administrators; but I sincerely doubt that,
say, the hotmail helpdesk personnel is allowed anywhere near the company
DNS. :)
If you're a senior network administrator, and you have been
granted/decided to set "-all" for your company's domains, then yes, it is
reasonable that you are aware of the consequences, and that you have
provided "trusted mechanisms" to authenticate/authorize relays for those
situations where "-all" would come to bite you in the ass. So, it is not
so much, I believe, that Vivien's argument falls on deaf ears; but ere
that there is no framing a sender policy around stupidity.
- Mark
System Administrator Asarian-host.org
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"If you were supposed to understand it,
we wouldn't call it code." - FedEx