On Sat, 10 Sep 2005, Theo Schlossnagle wrote:
already doing this. However, SPF having awful (show stopping)
consequences for senders who's mail is forwarded by someone who doesn't
care about SPF means that you can have something mostly useless before
Forwarders, even those who don't care about SPF, do not break SPF.
The "show stopping consequences" you describe are simple a braindead
receiver, who installed/purchased a forwarding alias, but neglected
to account for it in their SPF setup.
This is not "forwarding breaks SPF". This is simply "bad configuration" -
whether it is because of admin stupidity or poor documentation is
irrelevant. There are many more ways that bad mail configs can bounce
your mail.
The most popular SPF related way is to check SPF from behind a mail gateway -
presto every email with -all gets rejected. "Lookit that Elmo! That SPF
made our spams go way down!" Since spammers are big SPF adopters, it probably
improved their spam ratio as well...
Also, any large provider that blocks outright on SPF in the SMTP phase
needs their head checked. It's a really valuable feature to weigh into
an overall decision, but the other valuable features come from examining
the content in the DATA phase anyway.
You buy me a machine and internet connection capable of fully
processing 30000 messages/day, and I'll get my head examined. By rejecting
at SMTP time, I can keep the "idle" incoming SMTP bandwidth down to 56K.
--
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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