IETF SMTP Working Group Proposal at smtpng.org

Wed Aug 21 20:25:35 UTC 2002

	I'm not saying it's a solution for all problems
but that lets-say-for-example,

	AOL probally gets a lot of mail with forged yahoo,hotmail,
btamail.net.cn or smiliar MAIL FROM:<>'s

	Lets say AOL, hotmail, yahoo all today had a way they
could say "we would like to cooperate in validating source addresses
as at least somewhat more valid than today" and had a mechanisim to
do this with a patch to sendmail/qmail/postfix/zmailer.

	This would allow for while a few extra commands and bytes
per smtp-transaction the ability to authenticate such data.

	You could also then start keeping statistics and rate-limit
the callback mechanisim.  AOL (and i'm sure others) have done "so,
you want to bulk-mail aol users, sign here".  Including this
ability to increase customer satisfaction is in all ISPS
interest today.

	- jared

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020820/ap_wo_en_po/fea_us_spammed_war_of_attrition_1

On Wed, Aug 21, 2002 at 04:17:53PM -0400, Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Aug 2002 15:51:36 EDT, Jared Mauch said:
> > 	i do think some sort of smtp-callback would be nice/useful
> > for validation of e-mail addresses.  it'll make it so
> > the bounces go to someplace at least instead of Postmaster.
> 
> The fact that you can call back in no way means that bounces won't
> double-bounce into the postmaster mailbox. I'm sure that yahoo.com
> would buy into a callback scheme, but it wouldn;t have done squat for
> this double-bounce:
> 
>    ----- Transcript of session follows -----
> ... while talking to mx1.mail.yahoo.com.:
> >>> DATA
> <<< 554 delivery error: dd Sorry, your message to xxxxxxxx at yahoo.com cannot be delivered.  This account is over quota. - mta461.mail.yahoo.com
> 554 5.0.0 Service unavailable
> 
> (OK, so THIS double-bounce was a W32/Klez-H generated one, but I get enough
> of the same thing for spam with a Yahoo return adress).
> -- 
> 				Valdis Kletnieks
> 				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
> 				Virginia Tech
> 


-- 
Jared Mauch  | pgp key available via finger from jared at puck.nether.net
clue++;      | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/  My statements are only mine.