SPF on 9.4.1 now?

[Sten Carlsen]

Barry Margolin wrote:
> In article <f2ubk5$kuj$1 at sf1.isc.org>,
>  Sten Carlsen <ccc2716 at vip.cybercity.dk> wrote:
>
>   
>> The answer that you "just" upgrade your client-SW is probably not going
>> to make much difference. Most people will not be like those on this
>> list, they will be more ordinaire guys.
>>
>> I wonder how many will be able to upgrade an off the shelf windows
>> program? At least as I use spf, I use Thunderbird with the
>> spf-extension. While I have access to the source, I will not use that
>> effort, spf is not THE spam tool as pointed out, but in my experience it
>> does help in sorting things out. If only spf-RRs are published, I will
>> publish my own in due time when my DNS-provider has upgraded enough to
>> support them(I will also continue publishing txt-RRs until no longer
>> useful) and I will use them when "somebody else" has upgraded my
>> applications. This will mean a break in the usefulness of spf.
>>     
>
> I think the expectation is that SPF is mostly checked by servers, not 
> individual end users.  So ordinaire [sic] guys don't need to worry about 
> it, they just need their ISPs to update their SMTP servers.
>   
I see this differently, I use the extension made for Thunderbird, I
assume that quite a lot of other people do. It will only function with
the end user mail agent, it has no use in servers.

My reasoning for using this is that my ISP does not care and check, so I
see this as a way to make the separation between mail and spam a little
easier. It is not and can not be regarded as anything definitive, at
least not for the coming few years.

At a time in the future if the majority of ISP-MTAs will check and
reject if not correct, this will at least assure that you know that the
sender and the "From" are the same and make decisions easier. Whether
this will happen is not clear yet, any disruptions in rolling this
service out is not likely to make it faster.

Before we discard this approach, please put something better in place.
> And are there any sites that reject mail when there's no SPF record?  I 
> sure hope not, since some major companies and ISPs don't publish them.  
> So if a site only publishes the new-style SPF RR and not the old TXT RR, 
> receivers that only look for TXT records will simply treat it as if 
> there's no SPF.
>
>   

-- 
Best regards

Sten Carlsen

No improvements come from shouting:

       "MALE BOVINE MANURE!!!"