Slashdot Mirror
Hotmail To Junk Non-Sender-ID Mail
William Robinson writes "If your e-mail does not have a Sender ID, Microsoft wants to junk your message. Somewhere after November, MSN and Hotmail will consider it as spam. Sender ID is a specification for verifying the authenticity of e-mail by ensuring the validity of the server from which the e-mail came. Some experts feel that 'Sender ID' is not an accepted standard and has many shortcomings. Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard."
This means that I will stop using Hotmail -- go figure!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Once people aren't able to receive email from their friends and family, I predict a mass exit to other free email systems.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
...to verify where this story came from. I'm sorry, it'll have to be rejected.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Been wanting to get friends to get off the hotmail bandwagon for years. As an isp, I'd be telling my customers to tell their friends who use hotmail to get on the stick and go to yahoo or gmail before november so their ability to communicate isn't cut off. Please note, SenderID and SPF are both bad ideas. SPF didn't start off that way. In fact it made a strange kind of sense. It was co-opted. The IETF marid working group archives are a great place to go read about how MS really helped screw the pooch. Hotmail and MSN orphaning themselves is probably a good thing in the long run. It's a shame though. And yes, I publish spf records, no I do not make use of them. They are not useful.
If we all buy Microsoft email servers it will be a standard, won't it.
Deleted
Now that I've found Mailinator there's no reason for me to maintain a Hotmail account.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
This is a trial baloon. If some other big ISPs decide to go along with this, I can see it happening. If nobody else goes along with it, they won't enforce it. No need to panic here.
"We think Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard".
Gee, when's the last time this happened?
Personally, it will only be a matter of time until the spammers figure out a way to get around this. End result: a serious pain for everyone that accomplishes nothing.
Despite the fact that Hotmail will only be using SPF v2 records to do the filtering, it seems that Hotmail themselves haven't bothered yet to publish one: http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/lookup.ch?type=TXT&n ame=hotmail.com
... well, spammers won't change, so all this will do is convince those who use Hotmail because they've had an account forever or who don't know better... to look for greener pastures... like Yahoo Mail, or perhaps Gmail (if they can get an invite, which isn't hard)...
... I'm not the one to do it, I just enjoy imagining the sound of a cocking shotgun, why are you looking at me?
(or did they remove the invite system yet? hehe)
===
We all know what needs to be done about the spammers... *cocking shotgun*
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
I check my hotmail acct once a week or so...always junk mail. Needless to say I won't be sorry to see it go.
Ban Engadget - moderators censor comments!
I don't know ANYONE who uses hotmail for more than a throwaway address. So let them have their little party. Who cares?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I will just stop sending mail to anyone using Hotmail and MSN.
Problem solved. Next!?
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
The problem is, that the experts think, that the patents which MS owns endanger Free implementations of the "standart".
...will not be able to make the connection of why they are suddenly not receiving their Hotmail. Nor will they be able to tell Aunt Suzie to use "Sender ID".
Microsoft is losing it's ability to push "standards" and more and more they are bitten by launching stuff like this.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
I switched off of hotmail to gmail quite a while back, and frankly, I don't miss it. Every once in a while I log in to my old hotmail account to see if anything other than spam is in there. Nope.
Still have yet to get one mismarked spam in my gmail account though.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I've had my fun with e-mail spoofing, but now that e-mail is everywhere and used by almost everyone it's probably close to "time" for mechanisms and protocols that make e-mail more trustworthy and difficult to spoof (of course there are always going to be exceptions). But Microsoft contributes little by doing their own end run on the industry.
From the article:
This opens up a huge can of worms... I don't quite get why Microsoft doesn't learn from past mistake^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hefforts. The unwashed masses (read, typical computer users) already deal daily with mind numbing quirky computer behavior (or lack of). For example (and I know I'm beating a dead horse (checkmate!)), Microsoft's morphing menus with chevrons, Microsoft's dumping of random files in random directories to mold their vision of a magical world (how many have been burned by the unexpected "thumbs.db" file in their picture folders?), and bizarro network settings (ever wonder why seemingly every computer in a home network gets configured with bridging?) -- these are just a few examples of things that confuse and irritate typical users, but the ripple effect is into the "support" community (that's us).
Rolling out this semi-baked quasi-standard e-mail device could wreak havoc with the e-mail users. I'm hoping whatever they do it's configured by default to not reject non-ID'ed e-mails. Regardless, unless and until there's a stronger and more mature standard, this one's trouble.
I fail to see how this is anyone else's problem. If they want to label all my mail as junk, that's fine with me. Their users will probably not be too happy about it, and most will probably switch to another email service. If no one reacts to their demands, MS will be forced to abandon this line of action.
Hotmail and MSN will flag as potential spam those messages that do not have the tag to verify the sender
It's only fair cause we already tag mail from those domains as potential spam.
I wonder if G-Mail will be out of Beta by then? That could be an interesting opertunity for Google.
Anyway, G-Mail is already so superior to Hotmail, in both the interface and spam blocking, I can't imagine why people still use Hotmail.
Good for them. We've been blocking mail from them for years.
1. Microsoft (virri vulnerabilities) causes SPAM. Slashdot outraged.
2. Microsoft fights SPAM. Slashdot equally outraged.
Conclusion: Microsoft is always evil no matter what they do.
I bet that if it was a story about Gmail then it would be a great idea, becasue Google never does evil.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard. Nothing new to see here. Move along.
Not one to get caught up in Microsoft bashing, I salute the company. It may not make the best decisions, but it is making decisions. At some point something is going o have to happen to stem the tide of crap floating round the internet. This may not be the best secision, but maybe it will inspire other people to start making decisions. Once again Microsoft has proven itself to be a market leader, even if in bad ideas.
I'm actualy quite interested too see what the other big free web mail services will do.
If they will support this sender-ID when sending mail to MSN accounts.
If they will or wont will give us a indication of how they view MSN mail.
Every time RBLs are discussed here, there are a great many comments (quite a lot at +5) to the effect of "they're my mail servers, I can drop any mail I want to" from those defending their use of the various RBLs.
How is this any different?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
...for anything important. Even my non-geek friends and family migrated to Gmail, Yahoo and other free providers based on the level of service they were getting.
As for me, I stopped using my Hotmail account when Microsoft acquired them, and they went through that debacle when porting it to NT from Solaris.
Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard.
Umm... duh! What else is new here?
[move
Frankly, Sender-ID is a dead duck for many reasons but the biggest is simply that many legitimate emails come from random IPs while plenty of spam comes from infected "authorised" machines.
This is just another, on a thirty-year-long run, example of the fact that when it comes to IT, MS is clueless. Business methods and the law are their fortes.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard.
Get out of town!
Does anyone besides spammers use hotmail anymore?
It has the ability to white list. There's an option to send everything into the bulk folder except for mail coming from someone on your address book. Gmail and Yahoo are pretty good with sorting spam and I use them for personal mail. But for conferences and conventions, I use my hotmail address, and white list the few vendors I want to hear from, and all the others I scanned to get swag get routed right to the bulk folder. Great feature, definitely worth keeping one hotmail address.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
it's known as scHrOTtmail anyway
www.weberseite.at
If they go ahead with this then my users will simply not be able to send email to hotmail users. I see no need to implment garbage.
How will this affect mail servers that we create on our own? So our next generation of geeks can't experiment with their own?
There are 10 different types of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Hotmail has been on a steady decline every since Microsoft bought it. Just compare it to gmail or yahoo (which you CAN use with almost ANY useragent, even ones that don't support javascript). Most other webmail providers are now more rhobust, with a cleaner interface.
Not to mention you don't have to worry about them trashing your Non-Sender-ID emails.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
I can't imagine why people still use Hotmail.
A lot of people have address inertia. If you've invested a lot of time, effort and energy spreading around your email address (think of coordinators for reading groups, clubs, etc), then it's a lot of work to move to a new address and make sure everyone follows you. Personally, I think this is a big reason why a lot of people still have AOL, despite its obvious uselessness. I know that's why my sister has it.
Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard.
...And some (like me) feel that anything from
Hotmail most likely counts as spam anyway, and
have the entire domain in my filter list.
So Hotmail can't get mail from me anymore. Boo-frickin'-hoo. What next, AOL doing the same? Then perhaps Yahoo?
Sorry, but until a major provider that matters picks an anti-spam tech, they will accomplish nothing more than effectively depriving their customers from using email.
One invite already gone, 49 to go. :-)
Nothing to see here. Move along.
I mean, according to Freud's definition (thanks wikipedia), an important part of the 'id' is "the desire for instant gratification or release".
Considering Microsoft's history of delayed rather than instant release, you think they'd be in favour of accomodating this kindred spirit.
MSN Messenger is the crazy glue that holds together the consumer with the hotmail account. I gave all of my friends gmail accounts which are far superior going by interface alone (and they agree with this). However because they use MSN Messenger they almost always prefer to check their hotmail accounts. What Google needs to do to successfully compete with MSN is to release their own messenger program that's tied in with GMail, only then will it be easier to switch your friends over to another free email service.
Some experts feel that 'Sender ID' is not an accepted standard and has many shortcomings. Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard.
Let me guess, the story submitter is a Wikipedian? Let's try to avoid weasel terms. Unlike Wikipedia, Slashdot has no neutrality obligation, but if you want to attack something then be clear about it. Don't be redundant either; if a web standard is not accepted by the W3C (the only real web standards authority), then it is not a standard. Let me show you:
Opponents believe the non-standard 'Sender ID' is flawed, and that Microsoft is trying to force the industry to adopting an incomplete protocol.
See? It's shorter, unequivocal while maintaining all previous meaning. Weasel words do not sanitize an opinion in any way.
-- User:Xmnemonic
Microsoft has been using this kind of "embrace and extend" or pure "we implement and damned what everyone says" with their OS for so long, that they have forgotten how to do anything else. They're going to have quite a wakeup call when they try this in a market where they're far from being the main dominant force.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard.
You mean Hotmail?
(Of course, that statement in general is an excellent short description of Microsoft's strategy to maintain dominance. Maybe add to it "that is proprietarily controlled by Microsoft" at the end, since that's what they'd really prefer. When you're the monopolist or near-monopolist, industry standards that are open are very inconvenient for you.)
-Rob
Does this mean my Nigerian financial sponsor will not be able to communicate with me? What about my special meds at discount prices? How about the free vacations?
This is truly a dark day indeed.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Even though I rarely use Hotmail anymore, the few emails that were sent to my account have been lying in the "Junk" ever since (1 year). I've never gotten a "straight" email, even those coming from Yahoo! and other free webmail services. If M$ wants to inforce a standard, that's fine with me as long as it's safe and well done, and by the looks of M$ software so far, I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.
Microsoft will most likely block the emails, and send an email to the user saying "This looks legitimate, but we can't deliver it because the sender's company is not using Sender-ID. You may contact them here to show that you would like to see them implement it".
This will get the ball off their court, as they will get regular users thinking that this is a good thing and we should contact the other company to tell them to implement it, thereby slowly penetrating the market with the bull they call an innovation.
This is a huge improvement over the status quo, namely, Microsoft trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of incomplete, closed, patent-encumbered, poorly documented, and not accepted standard.
-Peter
This won't be an easy transition.
Person A:Why haven't you replied to my email??
Person B:What email? Are you crazy?
Person A:I sent an email to your hotmail account.
Person B:Hmm. Lots of people are wondering why I haven't replied to their email. Hotmail must be a piece of crap.
Person A:Yeah you need to ditch them. Use gmail.
Person B:OK...www.gmail.com
"to adopting" should of course be "to adopt."
So what they're saying is that, come November, the Hotmail spam filter might actually start to catch some spam?
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
SenderID forgets the fact that most legitimate email users don't use "authorized" servers, and that any new server isn't automatically a spammer. Further, there is nothing stopping an "authorized" server from getting hacked and becomming a spammer. Microsoft is trying to strongarm a bad idea. Assuming that the other free emails don't adopt the standard, I feel its doomed to die.
If you are are hotmail user, just send me a request at mshiltonj at gmail dot com and I will send you an invitation to use the gmail service. Free. First come, first serve. Hotmail users only!
Software Wars
Anyone looking to ditch hotmail? Let me know and I will send you your very own GMAIL invitation. GMAIL is not run by the "evil empire" and generally does an excellent job at crushing spam. GMAIL is run by a cool company named Google, while Hotmail is run by a crusty, uncool company named MicroSoft. Just based on cool points alone, GMAIL is the superior choice.
Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard.
Does the industry have a complete accepted standard? Why not? It's been more than a decade since spam has become a big issue. If by now the industry hasn't come up with a good standard to fight it, they never will. This is not Microsft's fault, this is the industry's fault for dragging their asses.
Hotmail people will have to check their spam folder so regularly for for things that aren't actually spam that Sender-ID will just annoy them so much that they'll abandon Hotmail. What's the point of spam filters when you have to check each and every email yourself anyway to make sure ?
For this push to adopt Sender-ID to succeed, Hotmail would probably have to be the source of more than 50% of the emails sent on the Internet. I'm pretty sure that is the case.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
Well that cinches it... now I can block Hotmail permanently, since they are refusing to deliver mail from my legitimate MX.
There are lots of alternatives to using Hotmail... Gmail, Yahoo mail, and others. Use them instead.
99% of the mail coming from Hotmail is spam anyway, so this gives me more reason to stop the spam coming from Hotmail to my users. I'm protecting my users by blocking Hotmail.
I for one am tired of Microsoft claiming to embrace standards by strangling off the air from the lungs of the real standards bodies. When Sender-ID is a widespread industry standard (i.e. in every MTA without patching), THEN I'll begin working with Microsoft to stop spam.
I will not be strong-armed by Microsoft, ever, especially where it affects MY server and MY users and MY mail. Period.
Until their OS stops being a malware replication engine, their services stop harboring spammers by the millions, and their patches actually FIX problems instead of CAUSING them, they can go pound sand.
I must say that I'm actually happy about this. I look forward to it! I'm a bit scared, yes, but I kind of trust that common sense will prevail (I know that's kind of naive).
For what I understand of the problem, this will work only if enough [big] ISP use it. Luckily, some projects "inability" to deploy SenderID (Apache and Debian come to mind) makes me doubt it'll ever happen, thus I hope this sends the shadow of SenderID that's been lurking the internet for too long now back into oblivion. And, as a side a effect, I may be able to make my borther and uncle move away from hotmail.
Obviously I'm a bit biased... I don't like SenderID, from almost any point of view. It troubles me morally (by restricting what should be an open protocol), and "physically" (my faculty's exchange server is a pain to use for that reason).
That said... I really doubt it'll happen. Microsoft may be evil, but they are not stupid. The chances of this backfiring are too great.
Isilrion
-- P.S: Now, I know enough about the SPF and SenderID to not like them, but I haven't been able to find the relevant patents for the SenderID problem... Could anyone point them to me? Thanks!
I've never heard of MS trying to jam inferior technology down our throat using their dominance in one market to force compliance with their spec in another market.
I think I'd ask the government to look to this. I'm sure they'll come down hard on Microsoft.
My mail server stopped accepting mail from hotmail over 2 years ago.
Sender ID is just one criteria used to determine if an email is spam. No sender ID will increase an emails spam score, not cause it to be rejected alltogether. Here is what an article I read says "Microsoft's Hotmail and MSN services have been checking Sender ID records as one test in determining whether a message is junk."
I for one am glad somebody is doing something, how bad does it have to get before there is unified action?
Why don't you discuss solutions instead of trashing MS or any other company?
But then again this is slashot, nadir of the internet...where the solution to every problem is to trash MS.
But "Somewhere after November" I think should read "Sometime after November"
"Somewhere after November" sounds like a cool name for a movie (probably something with a beach and Barbara Striesand in it) but not so much an actual date.
I wonder if this will lead to the "Server ID" standard that is being proposed to stop spam? It's one thing when we have a couple companies fighting for a standard like the NextGen DVD format, but when there's a standards war on the net about how to send email?!? It could get ugly -- but I doubt anybody would let it go that far.
[i] Microsoft's unilateral move may hurt Internet users"[/i]
This will make Hotmail its own little isolated island... a bit like MSN was in 1995. The move will hurt Hotmail users, nobody much wants to talk with them anyway.
Personally, I don't know a single person who uses MSN Messenger. AIM, yes, lots. Yahoo messenger, a few. ICQ, a few. I can't imagine that these people you know would lose much if they all switched to Yahoo - and they'd gain 750MB of storage.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
a lot of people use MSN... as much as I don't like it, I have to use it to keep in touch with most of my non-tech-savvy friends, who won't use any other IM...
And to use MSN you need a hotmail account.
Google still has a lot of public awareness ground to cover IMO... when I give out my gmail address, some people ask me "so you work for the government?"
I hope microsofts new steps towards curbing spam will end the millions of messages from hotmail accounts that end up in my mailbox...
The perception for the users will be 'email is busted'. They'll leave, advertising revenue will drop, eventually they will either go out of business or change their practices. I say let nature take it's course.
Slashmail.org "The Open Source Email Company"
Who cares? On principle I don't talk to anyone who uses hotmail anyway.
Hotmail's been my mail account for those places you have to register and click on an e-mail. I don't care if they spam it since everyone I want to has my gmail account anyway.
And of course there's the anonymous yahoo account for more stealthy activities...the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Build a better spam guard and we'll build better spammers. Security measures that claim to be 'enhanced' will just drive the culprits to create software to fake a sender ID. And, as afore mentioned, if that doesn't get results, then they hit the competition. I wish M$ could just 'take one for the team' and leave their crappy freemail as the universal spam redirect.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
Looks like I'm getting a bit too lazy with the preview button.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
One has to find IBM's SPF record rather amusing :-)n ame=ibm.com
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/lookup.ch?type=TXT&
Domain Type Class TTL Answer
ibm.com. TXT IN 600 "v=spf1 -all"
Only found Microsoft and Checkpoint using SPF records in their domain mx records so far.
You can be certain that every user listed in your Outlook Address Book will continue to get their "Hi There" and "Please Read This" emails on a regular basis.
All My Love
Your Dear Uncle William
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
It's the exact opposite for me: no one I know uses AIM or Yahoo IM. No one! My old IM buddies tend to use ICQ while ppl that has discovered IM lately mostly use MSN. Only I use Jabber... :(
"hotmail" does that already with my emails from stephan ((((at)))) space-time.net. They land in the junk folder, right away. I tested this a year ago. Stephan
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
my guess is it's geographically tied.
im in canada, most of my contacts uses msn. one american has yahoo, an australian and a british on aim, and the office cow-workers are split between icq and msn. everyone else is on msn EVERYONE
email me for invite... I hope we dont bring the gmail servers down, ./ affect, 'cause then i'll know TFA was just an *evil* way for gates to get his jollys...
#include bier;
Been blocking all free mail services except gmail for years now.
I've never had an hotmail.com or msn.com account and I've been using msn messenger for years. Go visit passport.com and register your email address with them. No, they don't spam. Never.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
As far as I can see, this would have some benefit against phishing e-mails provided mail from domains with no SPF entry was not regarded as spam/rejected. Then the choice of protection is left to the owner of the domain the e-mail comes from. yourbank.com can have one so they're e-mails can be identified as genuine. yourmailforwardingservice.com will not have one as it's unuseable. A little safe victory without losing any e-mail.
I have a hotmail account, and another mail account for everything else.
Yes, Mr. Anderson, you should live in two different worlds.
To use MSN's IM, you need a MSN/Hotmail account.
To send email to MSN/Hotmail users, people will get a Hotmail account.
Getting more people to subscribe to MSN/Hotmail accounts could be the real effect of their planned change.
Or get someone to write a plugin for gaim or trillian that will give them a "You've got mail" when mail arrives in their gmail box. We don't need another IM program.
Yup. Canada for I as well. It's just MSN MSN MSN. Even the ICQ users that I knew have dual MSN/ICQ accounts and much prefer using MSN (I do not understand why) over ICQ, even though you can't send any offline messages.
I junk all mail claiming to be from hotmail.
So I don't mind if they junk mail that claims to be coming from me.
Some of you might find this interesting. I was working with an Email list for job applicants to my company this morning. I decided to do a quick analysis of what domain these candidates had their Email at.
These are applicants for an entry-level blue collar job. They're supposed to be at least 21 years old, but at this point of the employment process, that hasn't been verefied yet. About 2/3 or our applicants are male. We have locations in all 50 US states, as well as Puerto Rico and Canada.
yahoo.com 7110
aol.com 3255
hotmail.com 2857
msn.com 556
sbcglobal.net 539
comcast.net 334
bellsouth.net 293
earthlink.net 134
gmail.com 132
cox.net 118
I'm not sure what this all means, but it does explain why you're having trouble finding a Yahoo ID that hasn't already been taken.
It's the land of the brave, and the home of the free
Where the less you know, the better off you'll be.
Jobs seekers seem to like Hotmail. I have about 300k customers that use it on their resume or to apply for jobs.
Also my older relatives use it after dumping AOL when they realized having a high speed connection and paying for AOL is not good.
I believe, "Mensa Babe", you meant to say Damned if they don't, Damned if they do...
Hotmail already "warns" you about emails that come from sources where "the sender ID could not be verified". As I was reading this article a typical 'ebay security review' phish-mail arrived, and hotmail flagged it as 'unverified'. Nice.
I havnt had any email from friends/family flagged as 'unverified SenderID', so it seems MS might be getting something right. Cant have a perfect record of screwing up everything.
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
Go to passport.com and register any email address.
There you have it, you don't need a MSN account to use the MSN IM service.
Unix its simple, but sometimes it takes a geniuos to understand the simplicity -- Dennis Ritchie
"Those who give up on freedom to avoid spam do not deserve freedom or penis extensions at all!"
(I think Franklin said that...)
Nowhere has Microsoft said they are going to "trash" your e-mail if it doesn't have sender-id. They said they would flag it as "potential spam". Sender-id isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing, and over 1 million domains have sender-id records.
From Parent:
"What Google needs to do to successfully compete with MSN is to release their own messenger program that's tied in with GMail, only then will it be easier to switch your friends over to another free email service."
From sibling poster:
"Personally, I don't know a single person who uses MSN Messenger. AIM, yes, lots. Yahoo messenger, a few. ICQ, a few."
Instead of writing their own messenger program, GMail could write a plug-in for Gaim http://gaim.sourceforge.net/, then push for its users to switch from over from AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ. Gaim supports all of these and more in one awesome interface.
Laziness, check. Impatience, check. Hubris, double check!
Got 50 to give away send me a email to my junk account.
my85junk@gmail.com
All email users wishing to protect the internet from underhand moves to force in opressive standards like these, take a stand against Microsoft like this...
Configure your email client to add to the junk score of any emails coming from hotmail.com or with an X-Mailer tag of Outlook or Outlook Express. This is beneficial to results anyway. Conversely, whitelist any emails sent from Thunderbird, Evolution, KMail and [insert fave OSS mail client here]. Spammers haven't caught onto this yet technique yet, but for now, I know any email from users I respect will get to me, at the risk of losing the occasion "OMG u open source fag, windows is t3h r0x0rr0r0r!"
I don't answer my phone often. It removes me from my work and then I have to answer questions as if I was under interrogation. If someone really wants to talk to me, let them come to my door, and then we'll speak on my terms.
Safe to assume gmail istn't there 'cause it's mostly used by techies who don't need / refuse to ask for support?
Let me guess... :)
Microsoft Exchange mail servers will provide this ID. Others will be prevented from doing so by Microsoft trademarks, copyrights, and patents.
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
If you don't want to be limited by SPF, you could always create an SPF rule that allows relaying from 0.0.0.0/0 (i.e., the whole Internet). :)
Spam is the reason I stopped using hotmail in the first place. I got an account and let maybe 5-6 people know the address when I was in school. In the first week or so I started getting spam.
This was a quite a few years ago, so it might not be the case. But then again it is Microsoft here. Introducing bugs while fixing bugs is the modus operandi.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
since most corperate systems assume its spam if it comes from hotmail. I think turn about is fair play, as long as I did it to them first, by my 'petty' calculation that makes me the winner.
Besides, its not like I am going to fix anything when a user complains they cannot send to thier hotmail account: "I am sorry, but hotmail is no longer compliant and is not supportable, please feel free to use another system".
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
The submitted story didn't properly use quote marks. But if you had RTFM'ed you would have found that the sentence you are complaining about is a quote from the news.com article.
So complain about news.com, not the submitter.
ahh.. you open source ignorant nerds
So we are ignorant nerds that are open source? Everyone is free to copy, modify and distribute our ignorance? I don't know about anyone else, but my ignorance is a tightly guarded trade secret.
http://www.watacrackaz.com
Here is why... How can something that a lot of email servers (including sendmail) do already be a bad thing? First, you can turn on ident support or host name resolution on a bunch of servers to make the reception restrictive. This is a good thing. I saw this in sendmail 15 years ago.
The scary thing, is that Microsoft has patented Sender ID. That's right! Toodle on down to the Microsoft link and look for the royalty free license. Something that a lot of people have done for a long time - is now patented by Microsoft. How did that happen?
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Sorry , does that mean its good or bad? I genuinely have no clue from your post. Perhaps you might try writing english next time.
Can't the email server just filter on the evil bit at the IP level before passing the incoming message to the mail handling daemon?
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Ah, the Google Alternative for Instant Messaging. The name finally makes sense! :)
"Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard."
Hmmm, yet another thing to push into the faulty standard of Exchange to go along with the rather non accepted Outlook Web Access, and the fairly undermineable Outlook.
Ill just stay with Postfix-Squirrellmail-Evolution , with decent PGP.
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
I find that hotmail has to be the worst at blocking spam. I get about equal amounts of spam at Hotmail and Yahoo. Yahoo blocks all but a couple messages a day. Hotmail still lets in over 50 messages a day. I think this is just a sign that hotmail is admitting that they don't know how to properly identify spam. I have another account with SpamAssassin, and I get no spam, and no false positives. However, the volume of spam is much less on this account, so I didn't think it fair for comparison.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
While both SPF and SenderID break on many forwarded emails, SenderID breaks on many mailing lists also. Moreover, one of the most promising solutions to the SPF forwarding problem (a specialized DNS server, as outlined in section 9.3.1.2 in the SPF spec) breaks when SenderID uses it.
So, SenderID is a patented system that is incompatible with many of the F/OSS mail servers that currently dominate the internet, it doesn't work as well as other technologies, it damages the use of SPF, and outside of MS, it is being used by almost no one.
If this was just a matter of hotmail and MSN hurting themselves, then I wouldn't have any problems with it. However, this appears to be a case of Microsoft working hard to hurt the entire internet email environment.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
I'm in the US, and the people I'm referring to are all over the country. Most of my friends were on ICQ once upon a time, but over the past 5 years have slowly switched to AIM. I think ICQ is better, but if nobody I know is on it there's not much point, is there?
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Microsoft is delivering an ultimatum here. They are saying "bend to what we want, or be unable to send mail to our customers".
I believe this is the rest of humanity's chance to send a message back, saying "No! We won't give in because you want us to - this standard isn't done, it won't work, and you can't bully us anymore."
How many people would be affected? I believe if nothing is done, Microsoft will bend to the pressure of the world.
It's too used to getting its way - the best way to teach a spoiled bratty child is not to listen.
Let's teach this kids a lesson. Don't give in to Microsoft's pushes anymore.
AccountKiller
All this "you didn't get my email?" situation will never happen to most of you. After some reading last night this is how I think it works:
1. I send you an e-mail with a from: address of support@paypal.com
2. Hotmail see's that the return path is from spammers.com servers
3. Hotmail asks paypal.com this, "mr. paypal machine sir, is spammers.com allowed to send email with your domain name as the from: address?"
4. Two possible answers: "no" and "yes, only if that machine's address is x.x.x.x"
So now you can understand where the effort goes into stopping spam. But I also found a weak point.
This check happens only if the return path domain differs from the from: address. Most amateur spammers will be taken out, but I'm sure spam script writers will easily find a way to spoof the return path too. And then this check will never happen!
Sender-ID could be another forgery prevention tool. But Microsoft is not content to be "another". The maliciously evil thing they are doing with this hotmail rollout is that to evaluate Sender-ID, they are reading a domains SPF classic record.
Yes, you heard me right. Almost no one has published Sender-ID records, so they are interpreting records that say which IPs a MAIL FROM can originate from as if they said which IPs a PRA can originate from instead. This guarrantees large numbers of both false FAIL and false PASS.
The false PASS is particularly mean to their users, since phishing scammers can how have their forged rfc2822 From get a nice VALIDATED stamp of approval from SenderID when the domain they are forging has SPF but not sender-ID records (it is possible to prevent this with careful design taking into account how the SPF record might be interpreted by Sender-ID).
I know what I will configure my email servers to reject as SPAM: Sender-ID'd email.
Let's introduce a standardized open alternative please...
You don't need to use exchange. What mail server you have is completely irrelevant. All that's in an SPF document is your domain name and the IP addresses of the mail servers that are authorized to send mail from that domain.
At my last company when management decided that they wanted to implement this it took me five minutes to use a wizard, enter the ip addresses, and send the file to our hosting company.
I don't care that it's not a complete solution. It will reduce a large amount of spam.
I didn't get the article when they talked about how it wouldn't work with forwarding. How do you 'forward' a mail thru another address? That makes no sense. If you have an account set up to relay your mail, the mail would still be sent from the server where the relaying was going on, and would thus have the proper headers for that domain.
Because ICQ is a crufty old monster. Most of the people I know who use ICQ haven't used the official client in years - the official ICQ client is the fugliest piece of software I've ever seen. I use Miranda for both MSN and ICQ, but most of my friends have migrated from ICQ to MSN.
I think this is what happened: ICQ took a strangle-hold of Canada. Backwards Americans missed the boat. Then, Mirabilis/AOL ran ICQ down the tubes by bloating it into a monstrous, crufty piece of crap. As a reaction, users migrated to the IM program that was already residing on their computer (and, at the time, launched automatically when you opened OE).
A huge amount of spam comes from zombie PCs. The point of SPF is that you specify a list of ip addresses that are allowed to send email from your domain. So if a zombie PC tries to send email from that domain it fails since its not in the list and the mail server can reject it.
Although I'm not sure that would be the case if you just specified all the ip blocks used by AOL in your SPF - not sure whether something that broad is allowed, but I don't see anything that necessarily rules it out.
Unlike the OS situation, hotmail is far from majority service of all email users. They'll pissed off the customers that they stop using it, or hotmail stop taking this stupid stance.
Without getting too lost in the rhetoric,
Can someone explain how the requirement for SENDERS of mail in a Sender-ID world differ from simply requiring the sending domain to publish (and, obiously, have the sending server match) an SPF record?
I'm sure there's more to it on the reciving/using side than simply checking an SPF record, but what, if anything, is there incremental for mail admins to do here?
Frankly, a requirement that "you should have an SPF record" is not all that different than "your mail server should be reverse DNS'able"--both already get you scored fairly high as probable spam for many ISP's (not just MSN). And "MSN will consider mail that doesn't pass an SPF check to be spam" isn't really news.
What more to the picture is there, if anything?
I use 2 Hotmail accounts. The first gets NOTHING but spam. In fact, I have a rule setup that just deletes it all. I really should change that, but the idea that all that spam is impacting their server gives me a warm feeling. The other, I use for anything that I need to fill out. If it happens to generate spam or can I use that.
Look, I don't mind M$ doing stupid things like this. How big of a share does Hotmail have? Probably not much. The more people have problems with it the more they'll stay away. Even better! I live for the day M$ is reduced to an applications company. Where Windows no longer exists. Where THEY are dependent upon licenses from vendors. Total destruction would be nice but I can live with "just another player."
I'm convinced M$ is inherently evil. Like murder, molestation, Satan, Eminem. The world would be much better off without it.
Instead of opening up your canned bitching about Microsoft, try finding a solution to the spam problem. At least Microsoft is taking a stand, which is far more than other e-mail providers will do.
Hmm - consider Google's tendency to lean towards Windows software (remember the Google toolbar?) it would be more likely that they'd base it on Miranda, a cross-network win32 IM who's UI blows GAIM out of the water. Plus, Miranda has a very Firefox-esque feel to it, using a polished, minimalist GUI and a robust plug-in system.
Alternately, they might throw their chips in with Apple, who are doing sexy things with Jabber on the Tiger release.
Does the authentication of SPF take place before the message is downloaded, helping reduce bandwidth?
/. effect.
I think this would be a helpful tool if it does. By having your email server download the list of authorized SPF entries, then during the ACK bounce the list, then reject the message, you would seriously increase efficiency of your server.
On the other hand, if it downloads it, then connects to an external server to auth, this does no good at all! And would actually use more bandwidth and cpu time, costing us even more money.
M$ needs to realize that not every ISP has 15 mail servers 29 DNS servers, 1k web servers, and enough bandwidth to stop a
My little 90mhz w/ 32meg ram slack box has been running for over a year with no problems, and spamassassin hardly takes up any cpu time. But with this protocol, my DSL line would pops its head like Richard Dean!
We'll see, or be dumped, eh?
SenderID is patented, developed by Microsoft. This is how they "embrace and extend" email, and attempt to take over the Internet by bundling everyone on Earth's email with "Microsoft frameworks". Now we know why they've "given away free email" with Hotmail for so long. They expect the return on their investment to be control of the Internet.
"The people who can destroy a thing, they control it." - Paul Muad'Dib, in Frank Herbert's _Dune_
--
make install -not war
"Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard."
Duh!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Perhaps places should start 550ing (SMTP Permanent rejection message) all mail from @HOTMAIL.COM with the message "Your site imposes a proprietary standard or marks incoming mail as spam. We reject this characterization, and thus we reject all mail from your domain. Please contact your site's administrator to have them correct this situation regarding 'Sender ID', or use a mail service other than Hotmail."
Perhaps this would discourage them from trying to impose a proprietary non-standard method upon others. If they're going to mischaracterize mail sent to them, others can simply refuse to accept mail from them.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Why? I have no idea. I'm guessing it's Microsoft way of throwing "Sign-up for Hotmail!" signs when you're filling up your info in MSN Messenger.
Personally, I hate Hotmail. Yahoo! and GMail upgrade all their users' space at the same time. As for Hotmail, it still has my account at *2 megs*, the same limit it had since *1998*, when I signed up for it. I wrote an email to Support asking if they were planning on upgrading my account and they just advertised Hotmail Plus!, the paid version.
(joke)My guess is that they still have my account stored in an old Solaris box and they can't find where it is.(/joke) I haven't used my Hotmail account for a long time now, but I keep it around just in case some distant family member who got my email 5 years ago tries to contact me -- yes, it happens more often than I expected.
Bored? Browse Slashdot with a +6 modifier for Troll comme
Don't bother waiting for November, start blocking hotmail today. Don't delay! Make sure none of you contacts still use hotmail long before it ever becomes an issue. Make hotmail irrelivant before anyone else consideres following their lead.
I just realized the senderID and SPF are not exactly the same... What I said applies to SPF, I'm not sure how SenderID works, since people I trust have told me there are patents involved I see no reason to learn about it either.
I suspect a variation of what I said will apply. I just don't know what.
I just happen to have 50 Gmail invitations available at present.
Would anyone like one?
John
I don't care if they junk non sender-id mail because I junk anything @hotmail. Now it's mutual.
Your choice of IM is strongly influenced by age, culture, geography, personal interests and affiliations, O/S, corporate branding, and so on. AOL begins with a reputation for trying to make things safe for kids.
Yahoo sees an opportunity to build communites around Launchcast and Y! Unlimited nusic. Each of the established IMs have millions or tens of millions of subscribers who won't be touched by an offer of another free web mail account.
Hotmail is only useful as a throwaway account these days when you sign up for stuff. That's it.
I refuse to "jump on the bandwagon". It's not a BAD idea, but it's riddled with flaws. Microsoft can muscle all they want. When their email users go elsewhere, that's pretty much going to be the end of that.
I may be small, but I know I won't be the only company refusing to setup Sender ID on their mail servers. MS will bow with yet another failed approach...you know, kind of like passport.
No big deal. I certainly don't use it for anything "important", since MSFT likely logs and harvests that shit like it was plankton.
Hotmail-to-Hotmail (just like Heart-to-Heart, but with a younger butler) sends will likely work. MSFT will have themselves a nice little protective niche, just like AOL.
I have friends that use each of the services. I use Gaim and the problem is solved.
MSN is the default ISP for Qwest DSL. Maybe not the biggest RBOC but certianly a lot of customers.
Not while Gaim uses GTK2.
I love it on Linux, but it feels like a stinky pile of poo on Windows.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Yes and then they could Open Source it and name it the (G)oogle (I)nstant (M)essenger (P)rotcol... or GIMP for sh... oh, wait..
Noone I know uses that.
So it sounds to me like just an idle threat.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
How do you figure? I tried Miranda a few years ago and thought its UI was terrible. I suppose they may have improved since then... Anyway, in what specific areas do you feel they trump gaim?
Although i use it on a daily basis, on my home and at work, i dont think Gaim is the best solution, in fact, i use it because is the only multiplatform/multiprotocol client i could find, there were others, but they were even worst. If Gmail wants to get on MSN Messeger service, they probably should support (or create from scratch) a good new and revolutionary Sofware Libre IM interface, just like their Webmail. Probably using Jabber protocol, which is not only Free but standard (uses XML) and it also supports "gateways" (so you can connect to see people in other networks --msn, yahoo, etc...--).
no sig
I wonder if google is working on a p2p IM, possibly adopting jabber for something faster. It would be needed to take on Yahoo and MSN. But now would be a good time to introduce it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In a short term (a couple of monthes) the scenario will be the following.
Spammers will start to have a kind of pseudo-SenderID that will allow them to send spam to hotmail users.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world will try to send email to hotmail users with no success.
That's what will probably happen.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
AIM and ICQ interconnect these days, so having one account lets you talk to subscribers on both...
The most important thing here is that hotmail users have the individual choice of blocking or not blocking spam. If they have friends who don't have sender-ID enabled systems, they can disable junkmail on an individual level.
I think that for most users, the benifits will far outway the problems.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard.
I sure hope it works. Otherwise I will be dead before a standard is ever finished that will not slow spam. By the time I'm dead and the standard is complete the spammers will already have hacked it. Nothing like giving them years to prepare.
Who do I thank for this forever delay?
I was under the impression with SPF, if you have an email alias provided by your organization, you cannot use it as your From address if you want to send it from another server.
For example IEEE provides me an email alias, but they do not provide me an smtp service. I cannot use my ieee address on the From line and send it to an SPF using service.
Is this true with Sender ID as well?
I keep a hotmail account around for legacy purposes, and because it's tied to my MSN Messenger account I still get friends sending email to it.
Far too often, their legimate emails wind up in the Spam folder and get missed by myself. It isn't that their spam filter is too aggressive either, as plenty of spam still hits the inbox. It seems that any message where a large number of people are CC'ed (ie, inviting a bunch of friends to an event) are flagged as spam.
I'd rather have more spam hit the inbox than legimate emails hit the spam box.
I suspect he tried to delete his porn collection and had someone check the thumbs.db file and find miniaturized image of everything he's been viewing. Huh... makes you wonder how often something simple like this catches the child porn people...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
"...my palm, my blackberry, my non-work hotmail, owa, etc."
I think what you're trying to say is that there are MS lovers who typically luuuuve gadgets and gimmicks and telly-tubbie interfaces and can't really be bothered with how or why things work.
My experience has been that these people think in terms of "that's a cool app!", instead of "that's a cool technology!" and scour the web looking for free stuff and pirated apps and clog up mail systems with huge video clips and crap.
But there are people out there who believe it's important to distinguish between technology and a specific implementation of a technology.
And there are others who believe it morally wrong to use pirated software.
Screw that lazy arsed convenience. Do the right thing!
Well gee. Hotmail suddenly stops accepting mail from non-ms servers, and everybody will just be stuck, right?
Uh. Maybe the true die-hard MS-loyalists. But what about Yahoo mail? GMail? Spymac? Lycos? mail.com? bigfoot? hushmail? bolt? catchamail?
etc..
If MS already had a monopoly on email, this might be a good way to switch over other clients. But it looks like a ploy to make hotmail into a barren wasteland.
Why get free email that doesn't work?
IMHO, this is very bad tactics from Microsoft and should be treated carefully by ISPs and mail providers. Because if gmail does not adopt it then the average user (who doesn't care about protocols, pattents and licences) will say "gmail is so lame, I can't even send a message to my friend". If gmail does adopt it, it will gain a big advantage against yahoo (with the same argument) pushing it to adopt it too. This can make Sender ID a standard and force everyone to depend on Microsoft's patended protocol to just send an email. Scary.
Please, everybody, don't fall to the trap. The correct way of thinking is "Hotmail is so lame that it can't receive mail from provider X", not the opposite!
Look, who cares if SPF breaks things. The things it breaks arn't really that important, and the internet email system is so clogged with spam it's worthless anyway.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Ok, this is gonna split email into MS vs non-MS. I recall yesterday's article about MS buying out an anti-virus company and immediately dropping their non-MS versions (and comments about how this can lead to only MS machines handling MS "content"). I haven't yet read the article about DoubleClick predicting the end of the free (presumably as in "beer") Internet. Not looking forward to reading it, either! ;-)
It's looking like MS wants to own the Internet (as people have said before!). Their servers are getting good now but the Internet does not run on Windows (what I mean is the backbone is largely *nix-based). How to get bandwidth providers to switch to a MS product? Explain to them that only an MS node can filter out spam and viruses, eliminating the traffic caused by these nuisances.
So we'll have the MInternet, where everything's tracable, trusted and trustworthy (and for sale) and the real Internet, which will be real slow, since both of the routers will be in N. Korea
I don't believe the Avalanche concept is going to go away, either; BitTorrent accounts for a vast amount of Internet traffic, why shouldn't MS get a cut of that if they could persuade people to switch?
Am I being a bit paranoid? They're not the only ones trying to get some pie (IBM want "big business", for example) but they're the only ones who are really going after ALL of it!
Sorry, I thought they meant "SPF" rather then Sender -ID. Obviously microsoft shouldn't be using their idioticaly patented propritery method.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The correct path for SMTP community users and providers is to abandon 'forwarding' support.
This small but major step is the last holdout for proper (but still incomplete) verification using SPFv1, Sender-ID or SPFv2 (not including the simple one line insertion of TXT record into your DNS server. Incomplete, until DNS-SEC is widely adopted.
Microsoft strategy is to steer the Internet community toward a more proprietary (and patent) route using their arsenal (however small it may be) which is HOTMAIL.
Rest assured, Sender-ID will be crushed under their own weight once the dual (or tri) system of SPF/Sender-ID is massively deployed side-by-side.
So, nothing to worry about. Darwinism at its best. Let nature run its course.
H3RBAL VI@GRA???
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
... should have an option of not accepting email that DOES have a Sender ID.
I'm not saying that the open source community should play childish games but this would be one way for the open source world to send a loud NO to Microsoft who apparently understands nothing but brute force.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I think this is the best policy I have ever heard of from Microsoft. If you disagree with me, you have never seen the load on a mail server that has to deal with a DOS attack from bounced back phishing emails. As an example, I have seen a bank, that will remain unamed (I need to keep my job :) have over 2 million bounce back messages in an hour becuase of phishing. This was a huge jump from their normal 12-15K messages per hour.
You only live once, so you might as well have fun before you die.
Get it here.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
The only spam I get on my hotmail account is from M$ themselves... Will it stop their stupid announcements too?
I've had my hotmail since since it was created, I believe it's 1996? I believe I'm one of the first ones. Unfortunately, I'm so lazy to use something else, so I just stuck with it and still use it almost daily.
Personally, I don't care what microsoft does with hotmail but if it comes to the point where I can't use it for emails. It's gone.
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
You don't need to have a hotmail account to use MSN.
MSN is *by far* the most user-friendly IM I've used - it's only "drawbacks" being that
-it's ad-supported.. but that's understandable
-it doesn't run directly on *nix.. that also is understandable I guess
-it uses IE as it's default browser regardless of your system defaults..
ms is dead wrong, and it will save them major, big money on servers and staff. because this idiocy will make hotmail useless. I strongly encourage all to not fall for raving BS from ms, and this is a most painless way to start.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
/
You may want to look at http://www.loftmail.com/
/ Free IMAP and POP
I, myself have used yahoo mail for quite sometime now and only within the last year have I been trying to convert to gmail. The point is though, that Yahoo Mail has actually been trying to compete with Google as far as mail goes. Their inbox size limit went from 4MB to 100MB to 250MB to 1GB within about a year (probably quicker). Microsoft, on the other hand does not care about it's mail users and I think if more people knew there were much better alternatives to hotmail, they'd switch. Unfortunately, the majority of the people using the internet are stupid (use IE, use hotmail, and put up with all the crap microsoft puts them through).
The draconian answer is very simple:
If Hotmail implements a "SenderID" requirement,
then:
Throw away all HOTMAIL-emanated email. Or bounce it, with a message indicating that:
"Your email server does not conform to internet standards and the mail cannot be delivered because a failure return may not be deliverable. Please consult with your ISP to remedy this situation".
and just do it.... Cut 'em off.
From the spo.pfbox.com site on SPF:
"SPF is ushering in a new set of anti-spam systems, where email is spam unless proven otherwise."
Your right in that it's an authentication mechanism, but the above quote is *why*.
The first paragraph explaining SPF (at the above site) is this:
"Have you ever gotten spam from yourself? I have, and I've been thinking hard about how to stop it! I didn't send it. It came from a spammer. If we could stop spammers from forging mail, we could easily tell spam from ham and block the bad stuff."
Yea, your right it doesn't have *anything* to do with SPAM
Since I'll have to send them to the people using Hotmail I correspond with.
I dumped my own Hotmail account when they started requiring a Passport account to use it.
You may want to switch to a GMail Account or a Yahoo Account if you want to continue receiving emails from non-Microsoft accounts.
Granted about Yahoo!, but now that Google is shutting down Gmail invite code spoolers, what's the best method for an outsider to go from 0 to a Gmail account?
...to convince people to stop using Hotmail. Yay.
With the 2.324 GB (at the time of this posting) of space from Gmail and the 1GB for Yahoo I don't really use my Hotmail account for much except to collect junk email.
While I guess this is only fair on MS's part, I have a filter in Evolution that automatically trashes anything with an e-mail address with "hotmail" in it. So I guess turn about is fair play.
In other words I couldn't care less.
Sure information wants to be free, but how much are you willing to pay for the packaging?
I have 50 invites to give away for a GMail Account. So if you dont have one, get one now :)
send an email to givingawayinvites@gmail.com and i shall send the invite to the sender, if your worried about spam then set up a free hotmail account u can ditch after u get the invite so there are no repercussions!
snap em up fast folks,
givingawayinvites@gmail.com
While I agree with everything you said (except that you imply that Sender-ID might actually work, when it doesn't) it's important to distinguish between SPF and Sender-ID.
SPFv1 is an anti-forgery system that works. It does not claim do anything whatsoever to stop spam . But, preventing forgery is necessary before you CAN do anything to stop spam (think about it).
SenderID, AKA SPFv2(pra) is an attempt by Microsoft to seize control over an open standard (SPFv1) so that they can control who gets to send email and who doesn't. They claim it prevents forgery (but it doesn't) and that it does not break some forms of forwarding the way SPF does (they lie) and that it is open (actually, they've submarine-patented parts of it) and that it is an anti-spam measure (which it wouldn't be even if it worked).
Once someone really understands these two facts, all becomes clear. The 800-pound gorilla is beating its chest and waving its tiny pecker around, hoping you will be either be afraid enough to adopt MS-controlled SenderID, or outraged enough to not adopt open, useful SPFv1.
For more information you might want to read some SPF-discuss list threads.
So what. Who cares. Let them. We all know (or should if you don't) why the Sender-ID 'standard' is flawed and subscribers will draw their own conclusions when mail from all their friends goes to junk. So, who cares. They really think they can strongarm this? Like other the so flawlessly successful strongarm tactics? Good luck. PS: And to anyone still using hotmail.. well.. bummer.
Poof.
It's not exactly difficult to add an SPF record for your mailserver
Unless your primary e-mail account is with a provider that offers POP3 and IMAP but not SMTP (e.g. spamcop.net), and you must forge your own address through your ISP's outgoing server. Or unless your primary e-mail account is with your ISP and your ISP hasn't implemented SPF. How should one handle that situation?
That's great for them. Now I will just tell anyone who gives me a Hotmail address that I need another address. There's a point where we have to put our feet down and just call their bluff of "if you don't use this, you won't be able to talk to anyone". Let's hope there's a big backlash and they can't keep this idea.
Tired of free iPod sigs? Subscribe to my blacklist
WordPerfect author says: Microsoft Word is crap.
Lotus 1-2-3 author says: Microsoft Excel is crap.
Mozilla author says: Microsoft Internet Explorer is crap.
I hope this one turns out better for you (for all of our sake)!
I'm a big tall mofo.
What if we all pulled our invites together
Then one of us would draw fire from Google for running a Gmail invite spooler. The popular one at isnoop.net got cease-and-desisted, remember?
The following companies have asked the FCC to support Sender-ID, so don't act like it's MS trying to trash the industry again. I'm not saying it's any good, but MS is not alone in supporting it.
Amazon.com Inc.
Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG)
Association for Competitive Technology (ACT)
Bank of America
Barracuda Networks
CipherTrust, Inc.
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Cloudmark, Inc.
Constant Contact
Digital Impact Inc.
DoubleClick Inc.
EarthLink, Inc.
eBay Inc.
Email Service Provider Coalition (ESPC)
Equifax Inc.
Goodmail Systems, Inc.
Habeas Inc.
IronPort Systems Inc.
MailFrontier, Inc.
Microsoft Corporation
Meng Wong
Port25 Solutions, Inc.
Postini, Inc.
Return Path, Inc. / Netcreations
Scalix Corporation
Sendmail Inc.
SKYLIST, Inc.
StrongMail Systems
Symantec Corporation
Teros Inc.
The Global Council of CSOs
The Go Daddy Group
The Open Group
TRUSTe
Tumbleweed Communications Corp
VeriSign Inc.
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The call to action is really for companies first to publish their Sender ID record. There is a tool on our site (www.microsoft.com/senderid) that will help create that record. Once created, companies need to publish that information in the text record in DNS. For senders, this is the only thing they need to do.
Since when are all the e-mail senders on the internet companies? If they don't understand that the internet is open to everybody, and not just people who are in it for a profit (or in it for their profit depending on your perspective) why should we adopt their technology?
Also, I can log into both my ICQ and AIM accounts with my client. But my ICQ nickname is different from my AIM nickname, and I know that someone else has that name on AIM. So if someone without a client that handles multiple messengers only had AIM, how would they send a message to my ICQ account?
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Nowadays you don't need a Hotmail account to get a Passport, the option is also there to tie your Passport to an existing email address.
You also have the option of signing up for a "limited" account in which they give you a bogus @passport.com address, solely for the purpose of signing into Passport.
I wish someone had made me aware of this when I had to tie my MCSE cert to a Passport, especially since it now seems impossible to move that tie to a less-intrusive form of Passport.
This is great. Of course I will have to change my GF to a different mail service but at least now I'll have a good reason to. I can say with a great deal of certainty that the vast majority (about 9/10) of the spam I receive is from address harvesting of Hotmail accounts. For example, within 48 hours of my mom putting me in her Hotmail address book my spam volume increased by about 800%.
Some also feel that Microsoft is trying to strong-arm the industry into the adoption of an incomplete and not accepted standard.
No kidding? Really?
The reason that the crappy Windows OS is so popular now is because of these same tactics from the same company. I'll be soooo happy when Microshaft is dead and gone. Long Live Linux!!!
An increasing number of companies is dropping sender ID again. Does Microsoft want to trash all mail that's not from a hotmail account? That's what it boils down to. Fuck sender ID and Microsoft!
I'm sure it's been suggested and I know I'm commenting late but I just got to look at slashdot for the first time since this morning... Instead of including the "sender-ID" other email providers and servers should just refuse to use it. While I'm not sure of the exact usage statistics, I'm sure hotmail doesn't own the market and this would put the heat on MS to forget about pushing non-sender-ID email into junk mail. If enough people are getting enough legitamate email in their trash/spam folder they'll complain, and if they complain enough and start to switch elsewhere MS will just shut up about the whole thing. Besides, hotmail's crap anyway.
australian project gutenberg is better than the original.
How long until windows the OS will monitor and reject any email as a security threat that does not utilize some M$ patented identification technology? It won't matter if Outlook Express will catch it for you, or if you don't use that, then IE the browser, or if you don't use IE but Firefox then the underlying OS will be kind enough to do the job for you. Monopoly abuse anyone, in the name of security?
You must paraphrase a book--you know, like Lev Grossman's Codex or something:
You're welcome. ;)
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
This will break a very nice service offered by my alma mater. They offer alumni e-mail addresses in the schools domain, which they forward to your real address.
Presently I just send mail out with that "FROM" address through my ISP. This will break that.
I realize that it is the same mechanism spammers use to forge from addresses, but it's gonna suck to lose that if this goes through.
No, they aren't clueless. They're evil marketing geniuses. It doesn't matter if you use it in _your_ enterprise, because someone in your organization undoubtedly needs to send mail to someone who does use it. Consider the following dialogue you'll soon be having with your pointy-haired boss:
PHB: The VP of finance just called me saying his friend didn't receive an email. What's wrong with our mail server? We need this fixed ASAP!
You: (after checking) Absolutely nothing. He wouldn't happen to be using a hotmail account, would he?
PHB: What's that got to do with it? He's been sending mail to him for years! This guy is important and he's pissed.
You: See, Microsoft implemented this proprietary standard called SenderID and our mail servers aren't using it, so the mail is being blocked as spam. It's not open source, you realize...
PHB: *rolls eyes* Again with the open source crap. We don't need to save money right now, we need to get this guy's email fixed!
You: Well, we aren't using Exch--
PHB: Buy it. I need this implemented in 4 days.
Ask anyone who has a gmail account already.
I personally already have a Gmail account, but there are still a lot of Internet users who don't have anybody @gmail.com in their address book.
For a corporation that has a $280B market cap and generates $36B in revenue, they better come up with good ideas to grow their business. Especially, considering some of their market share in other markets has been rotting away to open source and consumers and businesses not wanting to migrate what they already have. So, why not create an environment where SNMP servers have to pay a royalty for patented technology? The problem is that someone hosting an F/OSS SNMP server, then it is likely those someone's won't be looking to spend money on a solution now. Please. This only increase operating costs for entities that host SNMP servers. And I doubt that any royalties they collect will be more than a blip to a $280B company.
As of today, my free (backgammon) gaming site no longer accepts registrations via hotmail.com accounts.
They would add you as a buddy and write your ICQ number as the screenname.
Slashdot anagrams to "Sad Sloth"
Damn if they don't, damn if they do...
It's "damnED if they don't, damnED if they do".
Further proof that Mensa's members are nothing more than lonely under-read bourgeois windbags with artificially inflated egos.
And don't defend her because she claims to be a chick. (And yes, if she can say, "babe", I can say, "chick").
"Microsoft argues that publishing SPF records is simple. It usually does not require new hardware or software and the most arduous part is doing an inventory of mail servers and the subsequent maintenance of the record, Spiezle said."
So why don't all microsoft owned domains advertise them?
Same reason the vast majority of the thousands of domains I'm technical contact for don't, implementing it involves the non-trivial administrative task "check where valid email is sent from" unless the record says "and from anywhere else on the internet", which is totally useless for the person adding the record, and people receiving the email. Email servers just got harder to configure for minimal gain.
My server rejects all hotmail mail (too much spam). Somehow I'm not overly concerned with their newest idea.
I use Gaim and the problem is solved.
Not really. You're still using the service, even if you're not using the official client. And you have to have an account for each of the services you want to use (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, etc). I for one refuse to sign up for an MSN account of any sort. Using its messaging service with or without the official client ranks only slightly lower on my not-gonna-do-it list. Then again, if that doesn't bother you, then for you, the problem is solved.
I'm making a
I think a lot of this hinges on whether AOL adopts sender ID or not. AOL users like to throw fits over not being able to send email to people. In fact, having worked at an ISP that was blacklisted by AOL a few times, many internet users see the ability to send email to everyone else as some sort of right. Like ISP's have a legal responsability to accept and deliver each other's email or something.
AOL might adopt Sender-ID to appease all their customer's who want to communicate with Hotmail users (read as: all of them). The AOLer's don't care about "standards", just that their mail works. Microsoft will paint this into AOL not wanting to adopt "technology" to combat spam, and AOL may just bend to end the standoff.
I'm sure AOL can afford to implement a spam control hardly anyone wants to use for the sake of having their bases covered and being able to say "Join AOL, becausee you can send email to Hotmail users when you're with us" (ignoring the logic one could just get a free Hotmail account themselves for the purpose of communicating with other Hotmail users, rather than changing ISP's).
I hate SPF. Ever since Yahoo implemented SPF, I can no longer list my yahoo email address as my "from" address when using a client email application, such as Outlook or Thunderbird.
I can't send email through Yahoo's SMTP server because the guys over at Cox Cable block outgoing SMTP traffic which all ISPs do.
SPF completely ignores the realities of today's internet connected world, and it's preventing me from using my email in the way that I want to.
They had a blinking ad there. Wow. Irony.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
Actually, it was pretty crappy even before AOL bought it. If AOL added the kitchen sink, then Mirabilis had already installed the plumbing.
Nnow, even the "light" version is heavier than OpenOffice.org.
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
Programs like this one
http://freshmeat.net/projects/imsniff/
should be more than enough reason to switch to a different IM.
I would buy karma from ebay but I'm not sure I can trust the seller.
Isn't this similar?
http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys
http://glacierdragon.smugmug.com - Check out my photos. No need to buy, even though I do need the money!
I use several email servers for several accounts for several reasons. I have to send email to Hotmail users (and no, I can't even try to convert them). Is there any way to test this to see if Sender-ID is being properly inserted today?
Each of the established IMs have millions or tens of millions of subscribers
That's why GAIM is the answer. Everyone I've given it to loves it. GAIM is one of the most useful OSS apps available on Windows. It's handling of multiple IM protocols simultaneously easily trumps all other clients.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Switch your mail hosts.
Which, as far as I can tell, would require switching my e-mail address in cases where I don't own my domain, or it would require switching my web hosts in cases where I do own my domain but must use the web host's DNS server. What's the proper workaround in each of these cases?
So, that works out to about six or seven dollars. Plus whatever else you were not able to get to during that time, which may have a considerably higher cost...
Now, that ten minutes may not have been much, but what if Yahoo comes up with a competing system and you have to create a record for that? What if Yahoo (or whoever) comes up with a similar system and you don't know about it? What if every email "vendor" decides to implement their own authentication system? Suddenly your VP's mail isn't getting through. Suddenly, your help desk is flooded. Suddenly it's not just your "ten minutes" anymore...
It is NOT hard for your ISP's and those of us who manage our own domains to set up SenderID. In fact, it only takes a single TXT record in DNS to make it happen (a 30 second change, at best), so what's the big deal if Hotmail does this? It's forcing people to adopt SPF and SenderID so that it helps reduce spam and so that mail filtering will actually start working since it limits spoofing.
I use hotmail (signed up pre-MS) and my guess is that I'm no exception to the rule that you have to check your junk mail anyway to make sure nothing legitimate was filtered. At least once a month, hotmail filters mail from a contact (on my CONTACT LIST!).
My point being: I wouldn't be surprised if their use of sender-ID has little impact because of this problem.
As an anti-spammer, I really hope that Hotmail has the cojones to follow through with this.
Being anti-spam as well as anti-MS-lock-in, I agree. I hope Hotmail does go through with this, because it will be a wakeup call for them. If they think they can dictate broken standards to the rest of us with their 10% of the market, they're wrong. I don't care one wit if I nor my customers can no longer communicate with anyone clueless enough to stick with Hotmail at this point.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Block every third e-mail from a Hotmail address with a nice reply, a link to a site explaining Microsoft's motives in hijacking internet standards, and a GMail invite.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Fine, whatever.
For years already I have my mailserver configured to drop any message from hotmail.com because you get so much junk from it. And to people who try to send me a valid message from hotmail, I just say: get yourself something decent like gmail instead of insulting me by sending me messages from hotmail.
So I suppose it's only fair if they return the favour.
Isn't there an obvious difference between fixing a problem you helped to create by treating the underlying causes, vs. creating a proprietary 'solution' that treats the symptoms rather than the causes?
So let's just chase around every vendor's implementation? The issue here is that Microsoft is trying to push through yet another non-standard protocol. I'm all for SPF if it conforms to a standard, but SenderID is not a standard. It's an arbitrary modification.
I'm sorry but this approach is not the answer.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
Now HotMail will start junking a bunch of legitimate email. My guess is that it'll be so expensive in market share that MS will drop the idea before it was to go live, when it notices that the world is not following through on their tactics.
"Aim at foot. Pull trigger. Blame someone else." :)
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
What about SPF. Why is SPF not enough for Microsoft and why would SenderID be any better?
SPF seem to be the easiest, smartest and most compatible way of doing things IMHO.
And unsuprisingly, by Microsoft, the undisputed king of unreliability.
Any spam filtering the users are not directly in control of is counterproductive and contributes to the general unreliability of Email. Centralized control of filtering is counter to the very raison-d'etre of the internet. Leave it to clueless Bill-- still thinking he can control the internet. Just goes to show he never really has figured out what the 'net is all about, but then he's a control-freak, and the 'net is a control freak's worst nightmare.
spammers from hotmail sending "requests" for sender ID confirmation. great! so not only will stupid people be getting 50+ emails from someone selling viagra asking for them to accept their address, they will also be clicking yes, and also getting the spam. well done! thats twice the amount of traffic than before!
Just like disabling Active-X in IE., this date will approach and they will change their mind.
But it will have the effect of having many people add sender-id to their e-mail systems.
They've done this on other things as well.
Yes, but the MSN client (or GAIM) will inform you when you have new mail in your Hotmail account, but that doesn't work for other kinds of email accounts.
So MSN users with Hotmail accounts get informed that they have new mail, and they can check it. GMail users will have to log in and just wait and see if they have new mail.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Well, I host several thousand domains ... for us to support SPF with all of them, it will require a major engineering effort costing probably $100,000. No joke. Just a day of development time is something like $5,000. The 100 grand above would include all the testing and code review etc that would be required (we wouldn't be doing it manually, our system would need to create the necessary DNS entries, so it would be a coding job).
Its not going to be cheap/quick/easy for a lot of companies to implement SPF. But I think Microsoft will bully people into it. Maybe its for the best.
I've had a Hotmail account for several years and had no reasons to change previously.
I haven't had problems accessing it.
I get 2-3 spam emails a YEAR that were put in the Junk folder. It's not Microsoft that sells your email.
Once they raised the limits to 250MB, that prevented me from jumping ship to GMail.
I have a Gmail account and it offered no improvements to me though I can see where it would for others.
wow you must have some real losers there, I could code you up a script to do this for all your domains and test it in under an hour and you require 20 man days to write a script to implement SPF records. tell your employer to better spend the $100,000 buy hiring competant admins.
We don't manage the DNS records manually. If you actually read what I wrote, you'd understand that.
We have a site admin system, written in java, that manages all the config files. We have coding standards and testing processes.
You obviously have never worked for a company that makes more than $1 a year.
Administration Costs for bigcorp are mostly on the server end, and as you say that's easier. These are the people who probably transparently proxy port 25 to their in-house mail server anyway from all of their workstations, or have everthing set up inside some VPN for travelling users. Perfect. The cost here is often migrating legacy systems to new versions- something that isn't so easy. Software developers need to produce updates very quickly and most companies won't put them in until they're tested through-and-through.
But what about Small corporations and small business. I do some consulting as a part of my day for various businesses. These are generally offices between 1 and 30 people, often on the 'commercial' cable or DSL style line. Some of these block SMTP entirely (fine- so we use mail submission on port 587), but think of the time. You can't get users to do even this simple change. This is an admin coming in at a few minutes a workstation, stopping productivity for the users, and changing everyone's outlook settings to point to the proper SMTP server, or enable SMTP authentication, or countless other things. Changing these settings is a ton of work for small businesses... let alone hosting providers who have to force this change.
The reality is, M$ users won't get phone calls saying the mail didn't go through. M$ will return a message to the sender (500 response) saying that they don't have a record. Most users won't know what to do, and 99% of them will delete it and just not send mail to the person much anymore.
The problem is that the solution is not in the hands of the user. Receiving a no-SenderID bounce will not go to someone who has the power to create one- it instead goes to the end user.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
please spend your money more effectively, hire proper admins, even for thousands of domains a good admin that can script can do this in just a few hours.
And pray that your IP addresses don't get changed!
I stand by my previous comments. I work as an admin with 4000 servers, box *nix and windows box as well as a 2 mainframes. We have over a thousand domains facing the internet spread across 400 internet facing servers. We have automated scripts for management of our DNS and We still only perceive this as a few hours work to change. Your comments suggest a poorly constructed infrastructure and an inflexible java admin system. being both a dev with over 20 years experience in the industry I can't possibly see how a well thought out java based app could require 20 days of work and testing to add these records.
I've been rejecting mail from hotmail for years, it's only fair that hotmail is going to [finally] start rejecting mail from me. (I won't be using Sender-ID!!)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You don't go out much, don't you?
First of all, MSN isn't the instant messenger/client application. MSN is the network and (someone correct me if I'm wrong) the communication protocol. Second, there are quite a few instant messenger applications which are more user-friendly than MSN Messenger. The only thing that makes MSN Messenger appear more user friendly is the habit people gather after using it for long periods of time. And third, the client is badly written and the protocol is an ever-changing mess.
With all that in mind, why do people keep using a product/service which is extremelly inferior compared with others that are freely available?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Another nail in Hotmail's coffin.
And soon enough, it was not.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
There is a superior messaging protocol which is totally open, which has a pile of quality free(freedom and better) client applications, which is not dependent of private servers and that, depending on the servers the client connects, it can also connect with ICQ, AIM, MSN, IRC, etc. I'm talking about jabber
Have you tried it yet?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Uh. MSN messenger's service is significantly more unreliable than Yahoo Messenger's service. So much more downtime.
That is a big drawback for me.
There have been so many times that I am unable to log on and use MSN Messenger - and the problem is at _their_ end. Whereas that's very rare for Yahoo Messenger.
Maybe it's fine if you are one of those preteens using it just to send "winks" to their friends, but as a communication service, it needs to be a lot more reliable.
And ... here we go ... argument boils down to "My dick is bigger than yours".
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Not everyone does everything the way you do; not everyone can make this an easy change.
My figures might have been pulled out of my arse; but they were used to demonstrate a point. Which was exactly that.
There's always time to refine the system and fix the leaks later. It may not be perfect, but it will encourage other mail servers to begin implementing the system. All mail will still arrive, albeit some may appear in the "Junk Mail" folder, but A) If you're not at least scanning the junk mail folder periodically, you're probably already missing some mail that's incorrectly marked as spam, and B) If you're using HotMail to receive e-mails you can't afford to miss, then you're insane and should seek help right now.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
well it is just fair, my server has considered hotmail emails to be soam for a while now.
Yeah you made your point. You built a poor admin system. Good job!
I'm right there with them! I would love to refuse e-mail from domains that don't have SPF records. Microsoft and myself agreeing on something... must be a sign of the apocaclypse. When I hear the naysayers offer a solution that's even half as effective as this "lemon" I'll be ready to listen to what they have to say.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
anyone whose email address is at the hotmail domain is looking more and more like an aol luser each day.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
So Hotmail wants to reject my email because I don't use MS servers.... Well, I can have our servers reject hotmail users also and in the rejection notice will be found the following message:
HOTMAIL USERS:
All hotmail accounts are now automatically rejected. Since Hotmail automatically rejects any email sent from any server that does not use a Microsoft protocol, they have broken email communications and we cannot communicate with you. If you wish to communicate with anyone at this host, please use a different email provider.
The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Albert Einstein
Well, not me; if I had my way it would have been in perl and I would have been able to do as Mr my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours suggested and have it done in 5 minutes.
I didn't say I *LIKED* the way we do things, or that it was better, or that the system was good - but its what I have to live with.
I mean, seriously, how many people work for companies that hopelessly complicate things that should really be quite simple to do?
Thats my point.
When are people going to realize that the email infrastructure is _not_ broken! If you get spam, then who's fault is that? If you are giving your email address out to anyone under the sun, then you should expect to recieve some mail which you do not want. Why not just get a hotmail address and use that for random websites which require for you address for no reason.
This technology doesn't give us anything we didn't already have. If you don't want email from people you don't know, use a whitelist. Or better, filter out messages that aren't digitally signed by someone trusted. Digital signatures are a much more foolproof way then this Sender-ID garbage. If you need to be able to recieve email from people you don't know, then even sender-ID will do very little to keep unwanted email out of your inbox.
People need to stop blaming spammers and start looking inward for the solution. Real effort (who does that these days) can do wonders to eliminate spam. Give your email only to those you want mail from or accept that you have no clue who is talking to you and that you have no way to guarantee that they actually have legitimate business with you. Heck, here's a thought: generate a PGP/GPG key for people to send to you and filter out mail that is not encrypted. That way, anyone under the sun can talk to you if they are willing to put forth a tad of effort, and spammers will have to harvest not only email addresses but also public keys, and will have to further reduce their output by wasting CPU time on encryption. If you have a mail client with decent integration with some assymetric encryption app, setting this up should be accomplishable and worth the effort.
Sender-ID _might_ cut down on spam. But so can and does ISPs filtering out SMTP from their customers, and this doesn't break _anything_ for anyone else. The whole sender-id thing smells pretty rotten. "Choose to use it or be filtered," says Microsoft. It is counterproductive because it breaks what is working fine and doesnt provide an ultimate solution to anything. Microsoft has no control over the world's email infrastructure, and personally I prefer things that way. Their attempt to force some half-cooked proprietary sender-identification garbage on people should be (and is, thankfully) met with resistance. People who don't care can/could have kept things as they are without things breaking, and people who did care could have dealt with it themselves rather than relying on Microsoft to spoon-feed them a (bad) solution.
Well dude,
:)
.. but *shudder*), and calling it inferior, you frankly need to get your head examined.
Considering that the subject of my post outlines what I mean by MSN, not to mention the parent post.. you're just being anally_retentive..
Perhaps the client is badly written, but it is not apparent to me. Perhaps the protocol is badly written, but that is not apparent to me either. Either way, I wasn't aware of either of them being released to the public for you to make such sweeping statements
As to your other point.. since when is MSN not freely available?
If you are comparing MSN with Gaim (1.1.2 win32 port was the last I've used) or trillian (not used it for about 3 years I think
Hey, I've been using Hotmail since before it was taken over by Microsoft.
I still use it a lot, because I can easily and quickly use it from anywhere, and all my friends know the address.
But I'm now also on GMail, and it's quite a bit better. Been looking for a good reason to switch and - voila! - here it is.
Now I'll be forced to switch completely to GMail... good thing, actually.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Untrue. The SPF presence check is just one of many tests. Much more discussion of this at m'blog.
The (lack of) reading comprehension on /. never ceases to astound me.
AC implies that I would refuse to send email to someone just because it is a hotmail account. I never said that.
I said, "I can't imagine any important reason to send an email to a hotmail account."
What I meant was, "I can't imagine any important reason to send an email to a hotmail account."
I have sent email to hotmail accounts. The reasons behind those emails weren't important.
I'm was just pointing out that if the day ever comes that I have to send something important to someone with a hotmail account, and their hotmail won't accept my emails, it's no big loss (to me). I use their other address, or fax, or whatever.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
As a monopoly, Microsoft has more restrictions in what they can do (or would have, under an administration who understood economics) than other companies.
Of course, Microsoft has nowhere near a monopoly on mail servers, so as long as they only implement the policy on Hotmail, there is no problem. Only if they start to employ the policy in the software bundled with MS Windows or MS Office, (Outlook and Outlook Express) will there be a case.
No, what Google might want ("needs" is a little strong) to do is to tie your GMail/Google ID to a Jabber server, then develop a Jabber client as one of their beautiful web applications (leaving those who would prefer to use GAIM free to do so).
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
That's OK, I only use a hotmail account to sign up on sites that will likely send me spam anyway. I would never use it for real email.
What Google needs to do to successfully compete with MSN is to release their own messenger program that's tied in with GMail, only then will it be easier to switch your friends over to another free email service.
That's exactly what I want.. another connection, another contact list and another little icon at the bottom of my instant messenger. There are plenty of clients running around.
If google were to develop a client, at first glance, an open, maluable standard would be the jabber system.
I do live in Europe (I forgot to mention it in the orininal post, maybe that was the reason of your indignation?), so I think I know I what I'm talking about. MSN Messenger is known as "The messenger" here, most people just don't know other IM services exist. From what I know and see, I belive the generalization isn't that off.
Bored? Browse Slashdot with a +6 modifier for Troll comme
I just don't know why anyone would use relaying at all. Why not a VPN or something into the corporate office? Even GoToMyPC? Relaying for authenticated users can still get you into trouble as I found when someone spent some time guessing a user's password at my last company, for the sole purpose of getting us listed as an open relay, which we really weren't. But, since he did guess the password (name of the company, idiot users, can't do anything about that), he easily could have spammed through us.
Hey, I live in Europe too! Maybe we're neighbours. We should get together someday, have a barbecue.
How the hell can you so surely state that the 705.500.000 people of Europe have a predilection for msn messenger. I, for one, do not know 1 (one) person who uses msn messenger, and here I am, in Europe, as yourself.
But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Good luck assigning an IM client to every other continent you know.
That's the worst idea I've seen on /. in a long time. Hell, why not just throw ALL mail into the junk folder? Why not add an extension to Excel to make it an email program? Hey, these ideas are lousy, but they might inadvertently provide some benefit!
Let's get a _good_ solution, not an inherently flawed one, and _then_ consider implementing it.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
s/Dender/Sender/;
Corrected version (damn 2-minute delay between posts - always happens when you're in a hurry :-)
Beautiful.. This will spread like wildfire on the mailing lists. :)
As far as *big* costs, implimenting an spf record, doesn't mean you have to use it on receiving end... For cable/teclo that restrict outbound 25 traffic, the *PROPER* submit port for SMTP is port 587, which even if not implimented, you can do a forward/reverse-proxy at the server to get through... clients should be sending mail to the smtp submit port (587) for the mx on record for the domain in question... if it's not offered, contact the mail admin for the domain in question.
/24 for the mx record, otherwise hard fail if no spf/senderid is found for the domain in question, which is probably more than fair.
Setting a soft-fail will probably still go through, I beleive it is a hard fail that will be rejected, and guessing that the default will be for the
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Don't even have to do that, if they have a jabber server that creates an account for every gmail server, there's already a jabber plugin for trillian, and would presume for gaim as well.
Allong with other jabber-only clients of course, beyond this, they could definately make some compatible extensions to jabber, that would make a lot of people happy.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
I totally agree.. what honestly has kept me off of jabber is the fact that there isn't a larger scale system to use.. google running a jabber server would definately boost the protocol, and awareness, hell they could even develop a commercial package under another company for commercial servers for business... more $$$ for google.. :)
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
why would anyone use hotmail if you can just use gmail!!!