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Re: Report on the Email Authentication Summit

2005-07-21 15:59:46
Wayne,

Great report.

At 11:16 AM 7/21/2005, wayne wrote:
Hi everyone!
.. snip ..
I also had very good conversations with both Craig Spiezle and Harry
Katz of Microsoft.  I got the impression that both of them thought I
was just a foaming-at-the-mouth anti-MS person who's only objection to
the PRA is because MS likes it.  It appeared that they felt that
talking with me, and most others in the SPF community, would just
generate anti-MS rants and thus be worthless.  When I had a chance to
explain that my objections to the PRA, and the re-use of SPFv1 records
are for *technical* reasons, they became much more willing to talk
with me.  I wasn't able to change any minds, but we had good
discussions and I think that they will be much more willing to talk in
the future.

This is welcome news, however, in the time that I have participated on this list there have been very few "bow shots" targeted at Microsoft. In general, there seems a high level of professionalism and tolerance for SPF improvement suggestions and critiques by members of this list. I would hope that Microsoft personnel would not only want to subscribe to the SPF list, but actually become active participants. In this way, perhaps some further headway can be made in achieving some workable compromise as regards the apparent MARID failure.

It is clear that most members of this list are committed to seeing SPF continue to increase its share as the standard of choice for combatting domain name identity theft in email. That said, understanding the position of alternate solutions is never a bad idea, especially as regards situations where said solutions could cause conflicts in how SPF aware MTAs may interpret or misinterpret SPF publishers' intent to the detriment of these adopters. It can only be through respectful dialogue that problems can be addressed and solutions may be reached.

I hope representatives of Microsoft join and participate here. It is heartening to see some of the occasional posts on this list from employees of some very large corporations who are watching the progress being made here as they continue to investigate and test SPF implementations in their environments.

..snip..
-wayne

Best,

Alan Maitland
WebMaster(_at_)Commerco(_dot_)Net
The Commerce Company - Making Commerce Simple(sm)
http://WWW.Commerco.Com/