E-Mail authentication fight looming: Microsoft pushing Sender ID

Wed Jul 6 19:49:08 UTC 2005

> As we've seen over and over again, the one and only technique that has
> ever worked (and that I think ever *will* work) is the boycott --
> whether enforced via the use of DNSBLs or RHSBLs or local blacklists or
> firewalls or whatever mechanism.  It works for a simple reason: it makes
> the spam problem the problem of the originator(s), not the recipient(s).
> It forces them to either fix their broken operation (any network which
> persisently emits or supports spam/abuse is broken) or find themselves
> running an intranet.
> 

I agree that the "boycott" approach is effective.  It does not, however, 
completely resolve
the issue that is SPAM.  First and foremost, it does not make the spam a 
problem of the
originator at all times.  The issue is directly illustrated with smtp 
servers
that are RFC ignorant and don't notify the sender that an error occurred. 
Sure, there's
not too much work involved, I'm asked about a message that was supposed to 
be delivered,
nope it wasn't, must be an issue on your end.  It still requires me to 
look into the
problem.  The second issue with boycotting, is the false positives.  And 
dhcp makes
this a nightmare issue because some blacklists are retarded about how long 
entries
are left in the list.

Quite honestly, I think a good blacklist lookup and some sane bogon 
filters is
relatively effective.  Just be careful about what blacklist sites you use.

Some blacklist sites require you to pay them to have entries removed.  You 
can gurantee
a lot of false positives arise from using sites like these.

Or simply build your own.  Rich is correct.  The design and technology has 
been in
place for at least a couple of decades.  It does work, for the most part.

Tim
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