I've finally got something to say. I'm sorry I've been out of the loop for so
long but that's what happens.
The issue of the appeal is well-founded. We're going to have to represent our
position well. I don't doubt that I'll be able to get Amazon to show support
behind you guys. We have already put out our fires at Amazon in relation to
this, and I can show you what we've had to do if you're interested.
If I were to give sound bites to people, these are some of the things I would
say about the issue.
"Microsoft's Sender ID and our SPF standards are incompatible right now. We
have to work together to resolve this and make them compatible."
"Sender ID is reading things in the SPF records that isn't there. It says we
have to treat the records one way when the SPF standard say it must be
treated another way. Which way did the publisher expect their records to be
treated? I think the answer to that is obvious: They published according to
the SPF standard, so they expect it to be read according to the SPF
standard."
"I think this shows that Microsoft has lost. They aren't seeing adoption rates
like SPF, so they hijack SPF. What they are doing isn't right."
I think the rest of the technical world sees the fight as over. SPF has won.
It is a standard and will be a standard as long as there are technical people
around to implement it. The only monkey wrench in this whole process is
Microsoft and their email receivers. We had our fair share of problems with
them, but I think we have found our solution while still being faithful to
SPF. So even Sender ID isn't the end of the world.
Now, here are some issues I see (and I am sure you guys see it as well):
MARKETING. We need to keep marketing. And the best way is grass-roots. Make
sure you keep preaching the gospel on SPF. I think we need to do some effort
to refine the message we convey, and to come to an agreement over how we are
going to say it. I propose something like "SPF doesn't stop spam, but it is
one of the key steps to solving spam." Or "SPF prevents forgeries." When we
come together as a community and get on the same message and spread that
message throughout the internet and society, we will be heard.
You have to look at this politically and not technically. What can you say to
convince someone to publish SPF records that doesn't right now? What issues
do they have? What can you say or do to change their mind? Think emotions.
Think feelings. We have to change hearts and minds.
We should probably put someone in charge of leading the marketing effort and
let them put together a message and a campaign.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT. We are doing a pretty good job here. I think we can still
do a bit better. But I'm not exactly sure how, so I'll just be quiet. We must
be vigilant and look for ways to do better. Do we have a "Director of
Technical Support" to take charge of this? I think we need someone like this.
NEXT STEP. We have to move on to the next step. What is the next step?
Reputation services. I wish I had time to work on this. I'm sure if someone
took the lead some folks from our company would silently contribute to the
effort. What already exists? What are their technical and political
limitations?
I remember Meng had this complicated chart describing the ideal spam solution.
It showed how the SPF result would categorize email and it would flow down a
chart and get sorted into bins that were analyzed and cross-examined and
such. It was pretty good. It got me really excited because it looked like it
would really and truly work! Can we implement that here at Amazon? Probably,
but I don't know if it is worth it. Have people already implemented it? Yeah,
I am sure Barracuda and folks like them are doing it right now. I wouldn't be
surprised if most of the active users of this list already have a complete
spam solution system that is working fantabulously. But what can we do to
make it more accessible to corporations and small businesses? Does anyone
have a description of their spam setup that shows how each part is configured
and works together? Or is this just too proprietary? We should begin
discussing this and start encouraging people to DO something with the SPF
result. Let's get several good setups, let's share hints and tips. Let's make
it available to the internet on our website.
I think we have the banner. We are the leaders right now in the spam community
and a whole heckuva lotta people are looking to see what we are going to do
with it. 750,000 domains does not represent a small minority on the internet.
Let's start waving the flag and bugling for a charge. We can't let others
like the IETF, Microsoft, or even the US Federal Government limit us in our
goal of providing a real solution to spam.
--
Jonathan Gardner
jonagard(_at_)amazon(_dot_)com
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