There was a good piece in the New York Times yesterday about blogging, including some good quotes from Jarvis. I’m getting the hang of it, but I have to say that blogging in the bathroom is taking things a little bit too far.
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SPF and Caller ID for Email Merge – What Does This Mean?
Yesterday’s announcement that Microsoft is going to merge its nascent Caller ID for Email authentication standard with the more populist Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an interesting development in the war on spam. But what does it really mean? It means that sender authentication is headed towards a standard. Where once there were three, now there are two (Yahoo Domain Keys is another standard, although it’s still a little unclear whether it’s competitive or complementary). Authentication is an important component of the war on spam because it allows ISPs and other email receiveing servers to verify that the sender of the email is who he says he is. Spammers don’t do that. But authentication is only one facet to the…
Popular Misconceptions About Bonded Sender
There have been many postings about Microsoft’s recent announcement to use Ironport’s Bonded Sender Program as one of its many tools to fight spam and reduce false positives. I won’t belabor them here, but there are three common misconceptions I’m reading on the web and in blogs that I thought I’d point out and try to clarify. Misconception #1: Bonded Sender is a Microsoft product, and Microsoft will profit from it. Why it’s not true: Bonded Sender is operated by Ironport, Inc., a completely separate company from Microsoft. Bonded Sender and its cousin, Sender Base, are used by over 20,000 domains. Microsoft is just the latest, and highest profile, user. I don’t believe that Microsoft is making any money from…
Blog Blacklists: A New View of Internet Vigilantes
I always thought that spam blacklists were well intentioned but problematic for the email ecosystem, since they are vigilantes in action and have no accountability and trackability. Periodically, I’ve even pondered whether or not they violate someone’s first amendment rights. It’s maddening to know you’re a good guy in the email world, you can get put on a blacklist because some anti-spam zealot decides he or she doesn’t like you on a whim, you can’t complain or get off of the list, you may not even know you’re on the list, then you’re downloaded thousands of times by naively trusting or equally zealous sysadmins, and boom — your emails aren’t getting through any more. Then yesterday, I was looking at…