Re: SPF and bouncing

On Tue, 3 Apr 2012, Stuart D. Gathman wrote:
> Well, if you still needed proof that alias forwarding is broken, there
> you have it.  Those that will not accept SPF end up banning DSNs instead.

I don't see how "accepting SPF" can help save bounces or forwarders.  SPF
is certainly an annoyance to forwarders.

At present, SPF is nowhere near deployed enough (senderside) for it to be
viable to refuse all mail not bearing an SPF Pass or <>.  Since the
Conspiracy Against Bouncing has decreed that lack of SPF information is
not an excuse to emit backscatter, that means that mailservers have to
be prepared to accept unbounceable mail.

If SPF deployment did rise to that level, the past experience with the
conspiracy will make actual bounces rather rare.  At the same time,
spammers will be tempted to use the <> sender to save the trouble of
making throwaway domains.  So spamfilters will block all attempts to use
<>; thus bouncing will still be unusable.

---- Michael Deutschmann <[email protected]>