spf-discuss
[Top] [All Lists]

RE: [spf-discuss] SPF basics commentary

2007-01-29 11:39:28
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, David MacQuigg wrote:

My guess is that this is less a result of careful planning, and more a 
result of inertia in the way big companies do business.  To the extent 
there is any strategic planning, there may be a bias against any simple, 
reliable authentication/reputation system.  Such a system would save only a 
little in their current costs, and open the door for competition from 
little guys.

There is no competition from little guys for ISPs that just
Provide Internet Service.  That is a commodity item.  It is only
when they want to make me use their email servers instead of my
own that there is a conflict.  

With their outgoing servers, my domains are subject to forgery, because they
have no technical protection.  (Despite such protection being a simple database
plus a trivial milter.)

With their incoming servers, I can't check SPF.  They can't check it
either because they don't provide a way for me to list forwarders.
Beyond SPF, by checking reputation of HELO and MAILFROM, I reject
most spam in SMTP envelope.  Big ISP couldn't do that unless they
run GOSSiP protocol back to my spam filter (unlikely to ever happen).

If big ISPs actually did mail servers *right* and cheaply, I might not
waste my time running my own.

I do use big company services instead of running my own DNS server in
most cases.  They seem to handle that just fine, and have far better
geographic dispersion that I could muster (although Windows based
commercial DNS services can't handle rDNS delegation because of
"/" in labels - go figure).

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

-------
Sender Policy Framework: http://www.openspf.org/
Archives at http://archives.listbox.com/spf-discuss/current/
To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your 
subscription, 
please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=735

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