SPF and all that

So this morning I start up my PC, and fire up my usual start-the-day apps. First is Dilbert, for there is no finer way to start the day than by looking in the mirror and seeing if you recognise who’s there. Next comes Angelsys – our job/life management database. Then Outlook.

Outlook has (and this isn’t a discussion) the best scheduling facilities there are in a PIM. The group collaboration facilities once it’s tied in to an Exchange server are simply unbeatable. And the code was written by a monkey with a hangover. As you are probably already aware, this is one application that gets slower each time you upgrade it, and even on the fastest quad-core beast-of-a-PC it grinds to a halt as soon as it needs to download mail from a POP server. This is, I assume, because of something called synchronous programming. In other words it can’t do two things at once. So instead of letting my check my diary while it polls for mail, I wait.

‘Downloading 26 of 384 messages’. Bugger.

Ten minutes later I’m able to start working. The huge volume of spam is mostly already in my Norton Spam Folder, but I’ve already guessed what the problem is this morning. Some scum bag for whom death is way too good is sending out penis enlargement invitations with my (spoofed) domain in the ‘from’ address.

The 384 mails are of course a special form of spam called DELIVERY FAILURE NOTICES, which lazy sysadmins send out because they:
1. have absolutely no idea of how to run a mail server, or:
2. don’t care how much disruption this causes ‘spoofees’ such as us, or they:
3. do it on purpose because they are bastards.

I really don’t understand why spam is still such a problem – it could be so easily solved. Here are a few suggestions:
1. The frivolous. We all get our penes (yep, that’s the plural) enlarged. Then they go away.
2. The angry. We find them and we kill them (my personal favourite)
3. The serious. We adehere to the SPF.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) works. Last year it cured the same problem I had with another domain overnight. SPF is a simple mechanism that allows a mail server to accept or reject mail according to whether its’ acknowledged as coming from the mail serve that is supposed to have sent it. In other words the mail server asks “was this from you?” ad if the answer is no then the mail is ignored. It’s better explained in detail here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework, but the problem is that it requires the support of the appropriate DNS record, and some of the amateurish operations just don’t support it.

Amateurish operations such as Network Solutions, who’s FAQ doesn’t even acknowledge their existence. And to think these guys once pretty much ran the internet. Shame on you.

In the meantime, if you fancy a bigger dick, or maybe just a casual bit of DOS practice it’s open season over at http://griltext.com/.