All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

SPF

TorgoX on 2003-08-03T21:03:31

Dear Log,

So what do all the folks here think of SPF?

SPF

Matts on 2003-08-03T22:20:42

[Disclaimer: I wrote the SPF plugin for qpsmtpd]

I think it's probably the best solution for solving the joe-job problem, but unfortunately it requires the sender of the bounce messages to implement it in order to cut your false bounce rate. So it's only good as long as the large providers implement it, and even then that's not enough - you need a 90%+ adoption rate. That's going to be its biggest challenge.

Having said all that, you still get benefits and no downside to being an early adopter. That's a very good thing. And the fact that if it all does work we get to go back to using regular blocklists, well that's a very good thing. And the fact that it "fixes" SMTP without breaking SMTP is a very very good thing.

I have high hopes for SPF, but in my heart I suspect it will ultimately have small levels of adoption.

No More Spoofing!

chromatic on 2003-08-03T23:54:09

Anyone who says, "You know, the real problem is that spammers can pretend to be anyone!" has my vote. Throwing out SMTP in general or throwing out relaying or throwing out port 25 is dopey. Like Matt, I'm a big fan and, if it's widely adopted, I have high hopes for it.

As a pobox.com user...

schwern on 2003-08-04T00:34:13

...I'm glad its pobox that's coming up with an anti-spam solution, even though I don't know much about it. This means they'll keep in mind the *legit* folks who alter their From lines, such as pobox.com users. :)

Re:As a pobox.com user...

Robrt on 2003-08-04T04:19:16

As another pobox.com user, you haven't read this page yet, have you? Many objections are just brushed aside with "oh, users will just have to do this instead." I understand that things have to change - but the things that do have to change are going to prevent adoption.

Re:As a pobox.com user...

schwern on 2003-08-06T02:22:13

The little opening scene is pretty lame, breaking down to "SPF sucks." "No it doesn't." but the "Travelling Mailman Problem" solution seems ok. My MUA probably already does that by default anyway which is why I'm not already tagged as a spammer.

Spam is good

jjohn on 2003-08-08T13:46:05

There are lots of ways to solve this problem of spam, but I think the easiest is to ignore it. There are plenty o' spam filters. That's Good Enough, I think, for many users. Spam is a particularly annoying problem for chronic internet users (guilty). It's a kind of digital hives. A good test of internet addiction is to see if spam bothers you. If so, you've been on the net too long. Of life's annoyances, telemarketing bothers me far, far more. Synchronous communication saps my most limited resource: my time.

Yes, I know spam is throttling the life out of our networks, but networks just get faster. I wonder where that Internet II has gone?