why IPv6 isn't ready for prime time, SMTP edition

Wed Mar 26 02:51:29 UTC 2014

On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 12:51 PM, Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike at swm.pp.se>wrote:

> On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, John Levine wrote:
>
>> It says a lot about the state of the art that people are still making
>> uninformed guesses like this, non ironically.
>
> I have repeatedly tried to get people interested in methods of making it
> possible for ISPs to publish their "per-customer" allocation size, so far
> without any success. Most of the time I seem to get "we did it a certain
> way for IPv4, it works, we don't want to change it" from people.
>
[snip]

I would suggest the formation of an "IPv6 SMTP Server operator's club,"
with a system for enrolling certain IP address source ranges as  "Active
mail servers", active IP addresses and SMTP domain names under the
authority of a member.

And certain internet domain names as  "Active SMTP domains"  authorized to
originate mail for specific SMTP servers.

And some agreed upon operational policies,  such as  implementation of TLS
 using a certificate signed by the CA  or a recognized SMTP club....
appropriate processing of abuse requests, and prompt administrator
attention in the event of an abuse complaint or other mail issue.

With replacement of  de-facto  default accept with  de-facto default deny.

E.g.  If you didn't bother joining  one of the whitelisting clubs  we
subscribe to and enrolling your mail server.

The expectation should  become "Nobody on the internet is going to accept
mail from you"

Spam was a major problem with IPv4.....   With IPv6  we have an opportunity
 to set expectations  that allow us to  eliminate   ad-hoc dedicated SMTP
servers friendly to spammers, as an internet phenomenon.

> IPv6 changes things. Lots of things. There will be a lot of work to catch
> up. It's too bad that the part of the ecosystem that fights spam have woken
> up so late.

> --
> Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se
>

-- 
-JH