spf-discuss
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Re: Request for Input on the meaning of "pass".

2005-06-02 19:03:42
In <061701c567dc$ab18ea50$0600000a(_at_)john> "Chris Haynes" 
<chris(_at_)harvington(_dot_)org(_dot_)uk> writes:

You seem to be suggesting above that Neutral is an alias for None.

Actually, I am more than just suggesting, I think Neutral MUST BE an
alias for None.


Consider the following scenario:

1) There is a 'vanity' domain. All its mail is sent via the MX servers
of its MSP 'example.com'.
2) The MSP's MX servers do not prevent cross-customer forgery.
3) Anything from anywhere else on the internet was certainly not
authorised by the vanity domain..

What policy _would_ you recommend in the above scenario?

SPF allows for a wide variety of different Sender Policies to be
specified.  It doesn't do a perfect job for all of them.  In
hindsight, maybe we should have added HardPass and SoftPass results.
It is too late now for SPFv1 though.

So, to answer your question, I would evaluate how good a job
example.com does at controlling abuse, and I would evaluate what the
risks are if abusive email gets sent through example.com.

For a simple vanity domain and with a reasonably whitehat MSP, I would
publish:

   v=spf1 mx:example.com -all

If abuse was found to have originated from example.com, I would
complain to them.


For a bank, I would publish:

   v=spf1 ?mx:example.com -all

I would probably also look for more trustworthy places to send email
from.


-wayne