spf-discuss
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Re: SPF+SRS vs. BATV

2005-07-05 20:10:19
On Wed, 6 Jul 2005, David Woodhouse wrote:

No, the website FAQ massively downplays the problem. I'd even go so far
as to call it downright dishonest. It says "You'll have to switch from
forwarding... to remailing". But that's not really true. What it should
say is that you'll have to wait for the whole of the rest of the world
to make that switch. It's not about what _you_ do yourself when
forwarding.

"Forwarding" (in the sense of the above) is only a problem for some
domains - typically large ones who don't want to coordinate 
setting up this type of forwarding with users.  And the problem is
only that these large domains can't reject mail based solely on 
an SPF result.  They are no worse off than before.  They can still
publish an SPF record to great benefit - and use ?all if they don't
want to make their users use SMTP AUTH either.

While these large domains may represent a majority of email users,
they are a small minority of domains.  The rest of us *do* know
who our forwarders are, and when you know who they are, it is
simply not a problem.

So these domains, who don't know their forwarders, are no
worse off than before, but still get some of the benefits of SPF
(plugging the unreliable SPF results into a bayesian filter is useful,
for instance, and publishing SPF is useful).  How is that a problem?

-- 
              Stuart D. Gathman <stuart(_at_)bmsi(_dot_)com>
    Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.


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