Wayne wrote on June 8:
<snip>
|> * Please read the concerns raised by the head of anti-abuse
|> at Outblaze on Circle ID and the related references.
|> http://www.circleid.com/article/1039_0_1_0_C/
|
|I have posted that article to this list before.
|
|I have a lot of respect for Suresh, but on the subject of
|SPF, he has shown a great deal of ignorance about how it
|works. Granted, this was a rant he made after requesting
|to be placed on the T-FWL, so as a email forwarder, he may
|not have been happy about having to change.
Hmm ... an attack on the integrity of an individual held in
high esteem within the anti-abuse community based on ...
speculation.
The speculation?
That the article in issue and the stance taken against SPF
was written in response to a refusal by the operator of
T-FWL to have a specific forwarding service placed on this
service.
Rather than speculate as to motives, let's read what the author
wrote as to his motivations:
|Here is my reply to him, which also contains an edited
|version of my thoughts about SPF, that I have, so far,
|posted only on a closed antispam list some months back.
...
In other words, the position taken by the author in the
article was not first written in April, but in fact written
"some months back."
...
|I manage the antispam operations at Outblaze (we run mail
|for Lycos, mail.com and a bunch of other sites - ~ 40
|million users)
...
Hmm ... somebody who has a fair amount of experience in the
area of dealing with online abuse.
...
|Speaking of edge cases, what triggered this removal of our
|SPF records is basically an expression of my strong
|disapproval of a white paper on authentication technologies
|that Meng Wong, the author of the SPF spec, has published.
...
So there is the motivation. It has nothing whatsoever to do
with what is claimed in argument as being the speculated
rationale behind the article:
|Granted, this was a rant he made after requesting to be
|placed on the T-FWL, so as a email forwarder, he may not
|have been happy about having to change.
My response? Don't twist the facts and impugn an
individual's integrity based on speculation.
You may strongly disagree with the action:
|Speaking of edge cases, what triggered this removal of our
|SPF records is basically an expression of my strong
|disapproval of a white paper on authentication technologies
|that Meng Wong, the author of the SPF spec, has published.
But, don't attack someone's integrity based on speculation.
Just as importantly I am concerned. Although I appreciate
that everyone is highly motivated and many folks "believe"
in SPF.
However my mind's eye fears that we are witnessing a train
wreck in slow motion. The colliding forces? The
presumptions underlying the present protocol versus email
delivery. The wreck? Email.
I truly hope that people will recognize the merit in
stating that v=spf1 records only be used by receiving
networks for filtering mail and not to reject mail, the
specific filtering method dependent on the local network
requirements, with checking the SFPv1 record of bulk mail
from a fixed IP address against internal or external white
lists being the best use.
But I am afraid that won't happen.
"So pull up a chair Martha and come watch, because this is
going to be one heck of a train crash."
John