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Re[4]: Agenda item: SenderID Position Statement

2004-12-07 07:37:08
Hi Stefan,

Mail YOU send gets trashed when people you send TO use forwarding
services (hint: ever heard of a ".forward" file?).

Mail you RECEIVE gets trashed if you're using bayesian filters
(because so much spam has SPF headers, the filters learn to discard
anything with SPF headers - good or bad - since netscape etc don't
know the difference between good/bad - it just know that the last 100
spams it got all had SPF headers, therefor the next legit spf-pass
header it sees is spam).

If you're an ISP - your customer mails get trashed when they use 3rd
party mail servers, forwarding services, add-ons, and whatnot.  You
also have no control over what email clients they use, so everyone
using netscape/thunderbird or any other bayesian-equipped client will
be trashing "SPF-Pass" emails too.

I didn't say 1000's of false-positives. I said 1000 times worse than
current industry leaders (which are "0.0001%" (one in a million)
presently)

Not a bright picture: try explaining to your boss why your SPF idea
erased that multi-million dollar contract email he sent (or was
expecting).

Oh yes - and I'm not theorizing about the above either - I'm a victim
of all of it (especially the 1st one, and on a daily basis - I have to
resort to HotMail to get some of my emails through to my own
customers!!!). 

If you've never seen a false positive due to SPF, you either have not
looked, or haven't looked in the right place.  How long have you been
publishing, and how many people have you written to since who have not
written back or gotten your emails?

My point, which you seemed to have missed with your "let the market
decide" quip, is that SPF advocates are deliberately burying their
head in the sand and being dishonest about how bad SPF really is:
which doesn't give "the market" any reasonable opportunity to actually
make an informed decision.

Kind Regards,
Chris Drake

Tuesday, December 7, 2004, 11:51:13 PM, you wrote:

SE> Hi,
SE> to be honest we are using SPF and following it up allready quite a while
SE> and we never had even one false positve. In fact per definition false
SE> positives are not possible in SPF. If domain A specifies that legit
SE> mails from domain A originate only from Host B then domain A disallows
SE> mails being sent on behalf of A from other hosts B. Full Stop.
SE> If my MTA then receives a mail of A from Host C its forged as defined.
SE> Where are here the thousands of false positives?
SE> Maybe if owner of domain A missconfigured his SPF. Ok. But thats not
SE> the fault of SPF.
SE> Anyway - these are just my 10cts. I think this discussion of forwarders
SE> doesnt bring anything. Let the market decide. Noboy is forced to
SE> publish SPF or to check SPF.
SE> Stefan


-----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 
Chris Drake
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 1:42 PM
To: spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com
Subject: Re[2]: [spf-discuss] Agenda item: SenderID Position Statement

equally, and it's *really* important to *not* point out 
their faults.
Oh yeah? - like - forget the fact that SPF et al all suffer 
from 100 to 1000 *times* more false positives than the 
current leading anti spam and anti-forgery techniques - lets 
just be *dishonest* instead?
Good idea.  Really trustworthy & ethical.  Where do I 
download your code to run on my server again? :-)

You hurt yourself when you admit the shortcomings in your own 
products (or when you deliberately choose not to collect 
false-positive statistics that make you look bad)

You hurt hundreds of thousands of innocent victims (loosing 
their legit emails) when you cover up your problems.  Yeah - 
sure - it's not your fault that people using your SPF weapon 
don't know how to aim it
properly: but you can at least let them know there's other 
weapons out there that work 1000 times better.

Kind Regards,
Chris Drake

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