Novel Method for Universal Email Authentication

MKaplan writes "Most spam is sent using spoofed domains. Email authentication schemes such as SPF attempt to foil spoofing by having domain administrators publish a list of their approved outgoing mail servers. SPF is sharply limited by incomplete domain participation and failure to authenticate forwarded email. A paper describes a novel method to rapidly generate a near-perfect global SPF database independent of the participation of domain administrators. A single email from an unauthenticated domain is bounced and then resent — this previously unauthenticated domain and the server listed in the return path of the resent bounce are entered into a globally accessible database. All future emails sent from this domain via this server will be authenticated after checking this new database. Mechanisms to authenticate forwarded email and to nullify subversion of this anti-spam system are also described."

Comments

Re:Greylisting?

[richie2000]

You've been here a while, hmm? Next you'll be talking about Soviet Russia On Slashdot, Soviet Russia talks about YOU!

Re:That's the problem.

[jonadab]

I don't usually comment on signatures, but I'll make an exception in this case...

> Saudi Arabia spent $45 million on a mosque in Rome, but forbids churches in its kingdom.

Not surprising, really. However, it's what follows that I really want to address...

> We need a new Charles Martel.

I don't think going to war against the Saudis is a good idea. They're one of the most consistently sane states in their geopolitical region (and arguably the most consistently sensible OPEC member). Not that that's saying a whole lot given who it compares them to, but it's important nonetheless.

I'm not saying I agree with all of their political stances (quite the contrary), but the Saudi leaders obviously make a significant effort to understand what's going on around them, take into consideration what impact their actions will have, and do things that will maintain a reasonable level of stability in their region. Those kinds of things are SOME OF the most important parts of governing well. There are plenty of things I'd like to see them do better or different, but most of the nations around them do considerably worse.

Israel really doesn't count here, because the other nations in the region cannot and will not respect Israel or follow their lead in anything, much less consider them as any kind of role model, due to fundamentally irreconcileable ideological differences. (Many of the governments in the Middle East refuse to even acknowledge that Israel has any right to _exist_ as a sovereign nation.) Even if they were the paragon of doing absolutely everything right, the other nations in the region would never follow Israel. So Saudi Arabia is in a lot of ways the best role model they have, in the region.

Thus, attacking Saudi Arabia could have significant undesirable consequences. It could further destabilize a region that has always been a bit short on political stability and quite frankly doesn't need any further destabilization. In short, it's a bad idea. Overall, it would almost certainly make things worse, not better.

I say that as an anabaptist. We (anabaptists) have little good to say about any state-established religion, and Islam in Arabia is nothing if not state-established. Nonetheless, getting ourselves a Charles Martel for the modern era and sending him marching on the Saudis is certainly not a viable approach to the problem.

Of course nations that oppose state-established religion (e.g., the US) can exert what political pressures they can bring to bear, but I would be significantly pessimistic about what results to expect. If we were willing to make it a major issue and make some calculated sacrifices, and if we thought it would yield useful results, we could do a pretty good number on their economy (the US is both the leading consumer of petroleum _and_ the largest producer that's not an OPEC member, so we have or at least can have a very significant influence on the price of crude oil, if we are willing to suffer some domestic displeasure over it and take a few political hits in the UN), but I would not expect them to even think about relenting based on that. Indeed, it would be quite out of character for them to do so. Plus it would also hurt Iraq, which right now would be significantly counterproductive.

Whether there _is_ anything that can be done (about the state-religion problem in the Middle East), that would actually be effective, is an interesting question. I tend to think that there isn't, and the church in Arabia will simply have to continue as it is doing (there and in most of the Middle East), meeting underground and regularly losing members to the unsafe levels of persecution. I don't like that, but I don't see any way to fix it.