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[Asrg] Re: SPF: Objections 1 and 2

Meng Weng Wong <mengwong@dumbo.pobox.com> Mon, 16 June 2003 20:29 UTC

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From: Meng Weng Wong <mengwong@dumbo.pobox.com>
To: asrg@ietf.org
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Subject: [Asrg] Re: SPF: Objections 1 and 2
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Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:04:18 -0400

On Mon, Jun 16, 2003 at 12:01:57PM -0400, Meng Weng Wong wrote:
| 
| ...some objections to SPF have come from people who
| 
| 1) get stuck trying to define spam, and because they can't define it,
|    claim that nobody else can either, and so cannot imagine how to
|    solve a problem they cannot frame;
| 
| 2) champion a personal definition of spam, and attack technical
|    solutions because those solutions do not match their definitions;

(1) and (2) are a problem of definition.  SPF avoids the quicksand of
definition entirely.  SPF is merely an *extension* of SMTP which
*closes a security hole*; it improves the veracity of sender addresses
among consenting hosts.  It also fights worms and viruses; it also
fights forgery.  Right now lots of our customers misconfigure their
home machines as pobox.com, and send bounce messages using From:
postmaster@pobox.com.  The double-bounces end up in my mailbox.  SPF
helps solve this problem also.  If SPF works against spam, what a
happy coincidence!
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