[CentOS] Re: DKIM

Ralph Angenendt ra+centos at br-online.de
Wed Sep 24 21:16:56 UTC 2008


Scott Silva wrote:
> on 9-24-2008 11:41 AM Ralph Angenendt spake the following:
>> Scott Silva wrote:
>>> AFAIR yahoo only looks for proper SPF records and then looks at 
>>> content so far. My users interact with them all the time.
>>
>> Out of curiosity: What happens if you don't have SPF records?
>>
>> Ralph
> Initially when I had to deal with sending to yahoo I would get a mix of 
> mail dumping into the receivers spam box to downright rejections. Then it 
> moved completely to rejections. I have exec's that send mail to all the 
> big providers, usually to lawyers and lobbyists that are either too 
> clueless or too cheap to have a better mail system. Aol and yahoo at the 
> time just wanted SPF records and reverse DNS that resolves.

I really love it. There were times, when more spam had correct spf records than 
ham had. And SPF breaks mails in funny ways, especially for mailing lists or just
plain email forwarding. Yes, there's SRS which tries to unbreak that but
that's like trying to staple the staple on the dirty handkerchief you used for
the large flesh wound to stop the bleeding.

The only problem SPF can solve is that it is easier for the *sender* to make
it harder for others to use his domain name in forgeries. It doesn't solve 
any other problem. And people who reject mails because of SPF are plain stupid
(IMNSHO). It can be used to score, yes, but it really doesn't do what most people
think it does.  

DKIM looks like it is better thought through - at least it doesn't break mail
as spectacularly as SPF does.

Reverse DNS - I love it. Rejecting mails because of broken or non-existant DNS
violates the mail RFCs, though.

In my eyes obsessive anti spam regulations destroys that part of email which 
spammers didn't destroy yet.

Ralph
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