Microsoft sets Sender ID free

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It's not a "product" in the normal sense of the word . . .

It's not a product in a normal sense of the word. To be precise, SenderID (and SPF) is a short piece of text on a DNS server telling the receiver which machines are authorized to send emails. Since the spammer's machine can't be on the list, it makes forgery obvious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework
http://new.openspf.org/Introduction

They have already found a way to partially bypass it: Zombie machines can be used to send spam. Unfortunately, once the machine is identified as the source of spam it is easily blocked.

Another tactic is to just not support SPF/SenderID. Since there's no SPF record to check, it's now largely up to the ISP or recepient to decide whether it's spam or not. You still have to use other anti-spam methods for email coming from a source that doesn't support SenderID/SPF.

Fortunately, as SenderID/SPF is more widely supported the ISP can start using stricter policies for filtering their email. This means that the more people support SenderID/SPF, the less effective the tactic of using non-SPF sources will be.

Of course spammers can also support SPF - but that makes them easy to identify and block.

Posted by: CobraA1   Posted on: 10/23/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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