SPF checks now in beta for email forwarding and spooling

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Thursday, June 29. 2006

SPF checks now in beta for email forwarding and spooling

We are now enabling Sender Policy Framework (SPF) checking for email destined to our members' mail forwarding or backup smtp spooling domains.

If the SPF validation equates to hardfail for a domain with SPF validation enabled, our mail servers will reject the inbound message, all other outcomes will be prepended into an additional SPF-Received: header in the message and processed normally. Members can then add additional filters keying on this header in their mail clients or downstream MTAs.

This feature is currently in beta , if you wish to be a beta tester for SPF checks, please contact support and ask to have your beta user settings activated.

For more background on Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and how it can reduce email forgery, see our SPF tutorial and the SPF homepage

Posted by Mark Jeftovic in What's New at 12:28 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

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I would like to be a beta tester for SPF. What do I
do?

#1 Morris Seals (Homepage) on 2006-07-21 11:49 (Reply)

I have turned on SPF on my domain and am currently seeing the SPF data in the headers. Is there anyone that would like feedback on what we are seeing, since this is a beta test? For example, I got some spam from a spoofed earthlink address. But the header says "none". See below. Could it be possible that earthlink does not give SPF data? I'm thinking that's wrong. Further, why did I get the same SPF data message 4 times in my header? Not a huge deal, but probably something you may be interested in? If these types of comments can help you guys, let me know who to send em to. If not, I'll just leave you alone and enjoy my very useful SPF filtering you are providing. See below for the header text excerpt:

Received-SPF: none (maryjane.easydns.com: domain of Leticia.Owen@earthlink.net does not designate permitted sender hosts)
Received-SPF: none (maryjane.easydns.com: domain of Leticia.Owen@earthlink.net does not designate permitted sender hosts)
Received-SPF: none (maryjane.easydns.com: domain of Leticia.Owen@earthlink.net does not designate permitted sender hosts)
Received-SPF: none (maryjane.easydns.com: domain of Leticia.Owen@earthlink.net does not designate permitted sender hosts)

#2 Ray Lamberson on 2006-07-21 15:52 (Reply)

I did a quick check of txt records for earthlink.net and there are none so they are not using SPF. I would suspect they did not want to get in to the forwarding issues involved with proper SPF administration.

#2.1 Rick Cooper on 2006-08-30 09:34 (Reply)

I am using the new "easySMTP: Outbound mail service", what SPF settings should I use to work with this?
I added "v=spf1 include:mailout.easydns.com ~all" for my host, but it doesn't always work.
Is mail sometimes sent from other hosts?

#3 anonymous (Homepage) on 2006-08-29 02:10 (Reply)

Hello Mark:

Some email service providers of my acquaintance have have commented that they "don't believe in SPF", and therefore will not be adding SPF features, because SPF ultimately relies on IP addresses, which can be spoofed.

What is your company's philosophy on this issue? Are you moving forward with SPF because you are a believer, or simply because doing "something" is better than doing nothing at all?

Interested to hear your position.

#4 Geoffrey Milos on 2006-10-03 23:37 (Reply)

Hi Geoffrey
There are situations where publishing (and checking SPF) data works and is helpful and other situations where it isn't or causes problems (like the way it breaks forwarding in the absence of SRS)

Our position here is that we are basically your DNS toolbox. It's not really up to us to tell you what will or won't work for you. You are the best judge of that.

Our job is to provide the tools and the capabilities to you, and then give you the ability to turn this on for your domains that would benefit by it and leave it off for the rest.

As for the more theological argument of whether SPF actually works or not, I have always said it's an idea whose time has come. Whether it's SPF, DomainKeys or something else, some kind or origin vetting for email is inevitable.

The fact that so many people are so vigorously opposed to it leads me to believe it's on the right track.

#4.1 Mark J on 2006-10-18 14:44 (Reply)

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