Paul's Mailfrom (Was: IETF SMTP Working Group Proposal at smtpng.org)

Mon Aug 26 19:12:40 UTC 2002

Paul Vixie wrote:

> mjc at cooper.org.uk (Martin Cooper) writes:
> 
> > OK - but unconditionally permitting null-return paths means that
> > spammers can drive a coach and horses through the hole it 
> leaves. :-(
> 
> that's how the proposal is optional.  spammers who lie about their
> source/return addresses using nonexistent domain names are not the
> subject of http://www.vix.com/~vixie/mailfrom.txt; rather, i'm
> trying to address the issue of spammers who lie about _existing_
> source/return domain names.

This indeed will fix a lot of problems, and force people to use their
"mail upstreams" mail-relays.
ISP's should actually block port 25 outgoing, or even better,
reroute/forward it to their own mail relay.
This will force people to use their upstreams email address though when
sending email outbound.
And this isn't always what someone wants. But because especially the big
U has many 'users' who simply
take a dailup account, spew spam to all kinds of taiwanese, chinese, etc
servers those 'users' aren't hard
to block out unfortunatly.

IMHO, Paul's idea is quite a good one, but all servers will need to be
upgraded, and all dns entries installed.
Unfortunatly that will take some time, installing a tool like
spamassasin/razor etc is much more effective
even though those tools won't stop spammers.

At least it will help a bit against one of the bigger internet
"problems".

Greets,
 Jeroen