[Cadre-politics] SPF and MAILER-DAEMON backscatter

[Dan MacNeil]

SPF or Sender Permitted Framework is a spec for DNS TXT records that says 
what mail servers are allowed to send email on your behalf.

For example 

	earth.cs.uml.edu is authorized to send mail for 
	the cs.uml.edu domain

and:

	spankme.monkeyboy.spam.ro 

...is not.


The advantages for us are:

	people checking SPF record (like the CSL) won't accept and 
	backscatter/bounce spam/virus/phish from us.

	Verizon, AOL, Comcast, Joe's ISP of Spanish Fork UT
	will all be less like to score our mail as SPAM

	We can join the tens of thousands in the in crowd.

I know the #2 is true because of chatter on the anti-spam listservs 
and because verizon asked "are you using SPF?" when I went to get one 
of our IP# de-blacklisted. (thanks Gregg)

The disadvantages are:

	We need to setup SMTP AUTH on a box and have people 
	send their mail through that box.

	sites like hallmark.com that send mail on behalf of people will break.

There are more details at:

	http://openspf.org/

As part of our improved SPAM filtering, I figure to implement SPF for the
thecsl.org, brave.cs.uml.edu and the lists.*.org domains we maintain this
summer. (We @CSL are already using SPF info published by other people to 
filter SPAM)

As a side benefit we can lop a few % off the tech support calls. "use 
smtp.thecsl.org for your outgoing server is easier than "use your ISP's 
smtp server, it's probably something like smtp.comcast.net "

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