[Mailman-Developers] before next release: disable backscatter in default installation

[Ian Eiloart]

--On 1 April 2008 13:15:42 -0400 Dale Newfield <Dale at Newfield.org> wrote:

> Ian Eiloart wrote:
>> Actually, I'm veering towards the notion that we should be creating a
>> climate where the only sensible way to avoid collateral spam is to
>> publish  SPF records.
>
> That's not always trivial.  I get plenty of back scatter, and I've tried
> to do this to reduce that, but I've been unable.  My domain is for my
> family, so each person is in a different part of the country using
> numerous paths to send out mail (local ISP, gmail, web-mail through my
> server, a roaming SMTP service, various cell phones, blackberries,
> etc.), so I've not been able to come up with a complete list of what
> machines can send valid mail from my domain.
>
> -Dale

The long and the short of it is this: as long as you permit email with 
return-paths in your domain to be injected into the mail system without 
authentication and authorisation, then you'll suffer backscatter, 
blacklisting, content scanning and all sorts of other problems.

Ultimately, you'll HAVE to find a way that your domain users can submit 
messages through a server (or virtual server) that YOU manage. Your 
family's ISPs might be able to authenticate their customers, but they 
probably can't know that your family members are authorised to use your 
email domain.

I had a similar problem with my private domain: eiloart.com

First, I rented a virtual server. That turned out to have a pretty cruddy 
qmail installation (which would lose mail if it ran out of RAM during 
delivery!), so I got the domain's email service provided by Google apps. 
<http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/index.html> It provides authenticated 
SMTP submission, including on port 587, POP and IMAP. Works nicely on my 
iPhone, with Apple Mail, etc. One issue: I don't seem to be able to use 
both my personal accounts at the same time on my iPhone, but it's OK with 
Apple Mail.

Sorry, this is only vaguely on topic. Mailman doesn't really suffer the 
message submission problem in a big way.

-- 
Ian Eiloart
IT Services, University of Sussex
x3148