Re: VGER does gradual SPF activation (FAQ matter)

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



From: "David Schwartz" <[email protected]>

Rather than inject emotions let's play a little bit with facts. This is
excerpts from a SpamAssassin report for about 82000 emails.

TOP SPAM RULES FIRED
------------------------------------------------------------
RANK    RULE NAME              COUNT %OFRULES %OFMAIL %OFSPAM  %OFHAM
------------------------------------------------------------
  49    SPF_SOFTFAIL           1804     0.42    2.20    8.31    0.01
  72    SPF_HELO_PASS          1112     0.26    1.36    5.13   47.45
  78    SPF_PASS                994     0.23    1.21    4.58   45.53
  92    SPF_HELO_SOFTFAIL       772     0.18    0.94    3.56    0.03
 113    SPF_FAIL                589     0.14    0.72    2.71    0.00
 177    SPF_HELO_FAIL           352     0.08    0.43    1.62    0.00

Stated from the opposite view

TOP HAM RULES FIRED
------------------------------------------------------------
RANK    RULE NAME              COUNT %OFRULES %OFMAIL %OFSPAM  %OFHAM
------------------------------------------------------------
   5    SPF_HELO_PASS          28563     7.20   34.88    5.13   47.45
   6    SPF_PASS               27409     6.90   33.47    4.58   45.53

And so forth.

People here should be smart enough to draw their own conclusions from
raw data.

Yeah, that you measured the wrong thing. SPF does not distinguish spam from
non-spam.

What percentage of emails with forged sender addresses passed an SPF check?
What percentage of emails with forged sender addresses failed an SPF check?
What percentage of emails that correctly identified their senders passed an
SPF check? What percentage of emails that correctly identified their senders
failed an SPF check?

SPF is an anti-forgery tool. It helps to prevent joe-jobs and false claims
of being the victim of a joe-job.

I'll add to my offlist reply - SPF can be forged, as I noted. And it
really does not matter at all if you have a good or bad SPF record. It
does not tell you whether or not a message is to be accepted or rejected,
has bountiful information content or is a troll, or anything else for
that matter. It simply says, "When I went and looked at the guy's claimed
mail source the spf record said he was who he said he was." Who vouches
for the spf record? It seems tautological for me to stand before you
ladies and gentlemen here and ingenuously proclaim that I am who I
proclaim I am because I have vouched for myself with an spf record
I created for myself. This is what spammers did for awhile. That has
dropped off because it didn't help them and didn't much hurt them
either.

This is a LONG AGO dead discussion on the SpamAssassin user's list.
Those arguing about this issue should dig through the old message
archives on the list.

It is probably a good thing for VGER to vouch for its own mailing.
It is not much of a good thing for VGER to do anything else about SPF.

{^_^}   Joanne Dow said that.
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [email protected]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

[Index of Archives]     [Kernel Newbies]     [Netfilter]     [Bugtraq]     [Photo]     [Stuff]     [Gimp]     [Yosemite News]     [MIPS Linux]     [ARM Linux]     [Linux Security]     [Linux RAID]     [Video 4 Linux]     [Linux for the blind]     [Linux Resources]
  Powered by Linux