IETF SMTP Working Group Proposal at smtpng.org

Brad Knowles brad.knowles at skynet.be
Wed Aug 21 21:16:13 UTC 2002


At 10:00 AM -0400 2002/08/21, sjj at pobox.com wrote:

>   I'd like to be able to publish DNS records announcing my domain's
>   *outbound* mail servers, with nice abbreviated forms to say "they're
>   the same as my inbound (MX) records" or "any IP in x.y.z/24".  Then
>   cooperative ISPs (like say America Online) could refuse any email
>   from my domain that originated from some random cable modem, instead
>   of accepting it and then flooding me with 20000 bounce messages.

	Doesn't work.


	Back when I was working at AOL, every three or four months some 
new VP would come up with the "bright" idea that we should not accept 
mail from an AOL e-mail address that does not come from our own 
servers.

	The answer is the same -- doesn't work.  The reason is that there 
are these things called mailing lists.  Any user from any site in the 
world (including AOL) could post to the list, and then there would be 
e-mail claiming to be from an AOL user which is addressed to other 
AOL users, but which does not come from the AOL servers.

	Now, I'm sure that the next thing you're going to tell me is that 
we'd be talking about envelope sender addresses, not the "From:" 
address.  Well, many people run mailing lists as simple aliases, as 
opposed to using "real" mailing list management software.


	I'll say it again -- doesn't work.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles at skynet.be>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
     -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

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