Re: SPF Record ...

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- --On Friday, November 17, 2006 11:36:12 +0100 Peter Eisentraut
<peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> wrote:

> Am Freitag, 17. November 2006 10:34 schrieb Magnus Hagander:
>> Publishing SPF records for this organisation was a big win, and
>> it has noticably cut down the spam complaints we've received when
>> spammers have forged from addresses from our domains.
>
> This is really the only thing that SPF accomplishes: It cuts down on a
> particular domain/ISP being used for fake email addresses in spam. But a
> spammer can programmatically pick some other domain that does not publish SPF
> records.

'k, so the problem isn't SPF, but the fact that its not widely adopted and used
... so, let's *not* adopt it and increase its usage?

> So in the end, SPF
> achieves merely a convenience for the postmaster of the ISP while providing
> at best equal but usually worse service for the users.

Where you are losing me here is how this 'worse service' manifests itself ... I
can understand some cases where this would be the case (a university campus
where students send email while off campus), but for smaller organizations (and
I'm sorry, but for the number of mailboxes under @postgresql.org, we are a
small organization email wise), being able to impose some sort of policy (even
with a small exceptions list), shouldn't cause a degredation in service ...

> SPF checks the envelope sender address. That is the address where to send
> replies and bounces. Certainly Hotmail accepts replies and bounces via SMTP.
> So if some random mail server sends me mail with MAIL FROM:
> <blah(at)hotmail(dot)com>, that is perfectly valid and has nothing to do with
> whether Hotmail users can submit new emails via SMTP or whether the message
> is spam or whatever.

You lost me on this one (or I mis-read Magnus' email) ... but, you can't use
IMAP/POP3 to read hotmail, only their webmail interface ... so, the only way to
send an email out as an @hotmail.com address *legitimately* would be *thrrough*
their servers ... or did I miss something in either of your or Magnus's
comments about hotmail ... ?

- ----
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