spf-discuss
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Re: Updating SPF type99 and TXT RR's: Simultaneity is not guaranteed.

2005-08-11 13:09:21
On Thu, 11 Aug 2005, Dick St.Peters wrote:

Softfail is not "debug", it is (among other things) a hint to
Spamassassin and similar scoring systems.  A softfail adds to the
score, but it doesn't add as much as an outright fail.

It also adds to spam score, but that is another topic.

Domains with a lot of users sending mail from a lot of places (such as
airports, hotels, libraries, internet cafes, etc.) cannot possibly
list all the possible sources of legitimate mail from the domain, nor
would they want to say all mail from these places is authorized.  They
can, however, use softfail to indicate that mail from these places is
unusual and ought to survive other screening with little doubt about
its legitimacy.

I disagree.  The situation you describe is what neutral is for.  Softfail means
the IP has failed the SPF check - but the sender is not totally confident
in the accuracy of his record yet.  "Debug" is a good name for that concept.

If you don't intend to eventually fail an IP, the result should be neutral.

Furthermore, all of my 40 clients have users roaming all those airports,
hotels, libraries, internet cafes, etc, and they have no problem sending
SPF authenticated email.  They use several solutions depending on preference:

1) Windows laptop with Putty and preconfigured SMTP tunnel.  MUA
   configured with outgoing SMTP of localhost:25  
        http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

2) Laptop with MUA configured for SMTP AUTH to home on port 587 for
   outgoing SMTP
        http://sendmail.org/  (and most other MTAs)

3) Webmail
        http://squirrelmail.org/

4) Laptop with OpenVPN connection to home
        http://openvpn.org/

The webmail is the least secure, but the most popular.  We make sure the
mail passwords are different from their system passwords.

-- 
              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.


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>