Text 502, 54 rader
Skriven 2004-09-09 19:58:26 av Geo. (1:379/45)
    Kommentar till text 491 av Mike '/m' (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: Spammers faster than the good guys....
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From: "Geo." <georger@nls.net>

"Mike '/m'" <mike@barkto.com> wrote in message
news:7vasj0hg26p6lnnjpcf8ecnar71g4b10nm@4ax.com...
> An interesting article on SPF, Sender-ID and their origins.
> http://www.circleid.com/article/730_0_1_0_C/

They mention Paul Vixie in that article, as it happens I see him post about SPF
fairly often, here is a good example of his view on it.

Geo.


http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg00990.html

> SPF is worthless.

i don't agree.  i think it's overengineered and that a simpler solution like
the one at <http://sa.vix.com/~vixie/mailfrom.txt> should have been deployed
years ago, but i don't think SPF, or things like SPF, are at all worthless.

every time someone forges one of my domains or e-mail addresses as a spam
source, i get all kinds of bot-mail telling me that what the spammer tried to
do didn't work.  quite a lot of challenge/response nonsense.  quite a few
majordomo/etc listbot error messages.  a whole pile of mailer-daemon@ errors.

the right way to resolve this would be to make all errors synchronous to the
smtp session where they occur.  but this would prevent secondary-mx, or any
kind of asynchronous mail forwarding.  so, mail that requires a robotic reply
has to cause a new envelope to hold this reply, and if the source was forged,
then some innocent bystander is going to get that reply.

if all mailbots learned to speak something like SPF, and my domains all
advertise the nec'y metadata to enable something like SPF, then i would find it
far easier to filter the remaining drivel in my inbox, which would just be spam
and e-mail (listed in order by volume) -- no more mailbot responses to messages
i never sent.

the economic benefit that will actually cause something like SPF to come into
wide use is different yet again -- it's not to make it easier to filter the
remainder, and it's not to stop spam.  it's to protect trademarks owned by
large e-mail providers ("@hotmail.com" being one, "@yahoo.com" being another)
from dilution.  everything that happens on the internet these days happens for
economics-related reasons.  i'm glad that companies bigger and richer than i am
find it in their own selfish best interests to push something like SPF -- that
means it'll happen.  that my own reasons differ from theirs is immaterial. 
that they have to mismarket it as a spamstopper to get corporate and investor
support for it is also immaterial.  the fact is, it's coming -- and it's
useful, just not for the advertised reasons, or a universal reason.
--
Paul Vixie

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