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RE: For SPF council review: Syntax error = Perm error = Message should be rejected?

2005-05-10 13:03:37
-----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 wayne
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 10:35 PM
To: spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com
Subject: Re: [spf-discuss] For SPF council review: Syntax error = Perm
error = Message should be rejected?


In <NGBBLEIJOEEEBMEIAPBKAEECIAAA(_dot_)scott(_at_)kitterman(_dot_)com> Scott
Kitterman <spf2(_at_)kitterman(_dot_)com> writes:

I feel pretty strongly that rejecting messages from a domain with a
malformed SPF record is a really bad idea.  People new to SPF
make all kinds
of mistakes.  If after the first mistake, they start getting messages
rejected, they'll just give up and go home.

[snip]


For what it is worth, this issue was *not* brought before the council
meeting yesterday for two reasons.  First, I'm not sure that it has
been discussed/evaluated enough, for at least me, to make an informed
decision.  Secondly, Meng had to leave the meeting before we got
to this item and I think it is important to have his input on this
subject.


The current plan is to try to rule on this, and any other draft spec
issues that people want ruled on, in the next meeting.  I *think* that
next meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday.



-wayne

For what it's worth, the following question was just sent in via the
submission form on the spf.pobox.com web site (I am not making this up):

I guess I am unsure how this is setup, and what will happen if
it is done wrong? Can you assist?

Now I'm going to try to be a bit vague about the long term implications of
being wrong because I don't know what they will be.

I think that we are currently trying to fit three types of error into two
error descriptions.  They are:

1.  TempError - Something's wrong, but try again it could/should get better.

2.  MistakeError - Something's wrong, it won't get better, but there's
nothing particularly scary about it.

3.  DangerError - Somethings wrong, it won't get better, and the error has
potential security implications.

I don't think there is any contention about TempError.  I brought this up
being worried about #2, but I didn't know about #3.

Pick your own terms, but if we could break out mistakes without security
risk into a unknown type catagory (as in the SPF Classic drafts) and then
have the macro errors be PermError, then I think we can make everybody happy
(except the part where the spec gets longer).

The mistakes would get an evaluation equivalent to don't know or None.

The PermError would get and evaluation equivalent to Fail.

PermError with Fail for the macros really doesn't bother me because that
isn't where the novice publisher will start.  I think a higher expectation
there is reasonable.

Scott Kitterman