All Archives / aussie-isp / 2005-06
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Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 13:03:28 +1000
From: Craig Sanders
To: Oz-ISP, aussie-isp
Message-Id: <20050612030327.GD6237@taz.net.au>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.33.0506111840570.1517-100000@home.albury.net.au>
References: <200506110137.j5B1b3EI030170@mailout2.pacific.net.au> <Pine.BSF.4.33.0506111840570.1517-100000@home.albury.net.au>
Subject: Re: [Oz-ISP] Helo Pacific
Followups:

<20050612070437.GK6237@taz.net.au>
<20050612065619.GB79516@k7.mavetju>
<20050612230916.GA4963@enc.com.au>
<Pine.GSO.4.58.0506121630140.12879@lios.apana.org.au>


On Sat, Jun 11, 2005 at 06:44:42PM +1000, Ross Wheeler wrote:
> Ones that clearly work like this are:
>   yahoo
>   hotmail
>   msn
>   aol
>   microsoft
>   westpac.com.au
>   citibank.com
>
> Probably thousands of others too, but certainly these ones I *DO*
> check in the helo/ehlo exchange, and if they ain't who they claim to
> be, they get dropped quick smart.

this is one thing that SPF is good for(*)....use it to check not only
envelope-From addresses, but also HELO/EHLO names.

fortunately, some of the popular services above (e.g. aol, hotmail, and
msn) do publish SPF records in their DNS.

in fact, yahoo and westpac are the only domains in the list above that
don't publish SPF records. yahoo probably because they have their own
domain-keys anti-forgery thing (which seems vastly more complicated
without any noticable advantage over SPF) and westpac presumably because
they're ignorant.



(*) contrary to misguided popular opinion, SPF is *NOT* a spam-blocking
device, it is an anti-forgery device. it allows the owner of a domain to
specify which hosts are allowed to send mail claiming to be from that
domain. if more banks used it, then phishing would be nowhere near as
significant a problem.

citibank.com, at least, publishes an SPF record. too bad westpac doesn't
have enough clue to do that. actually, it looks like all the australian
banks are clueless about this - NONE of the australian banks i queried
publish SPF records.

craig

--
craig sanders <c a s @ t a z . n e t . a u           (part time cyborg)
----
email "unsubscribe aussie-isp" to m a j o r d o m o @ a u s s i e . n e t to be removed.

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