"Ken Hirsch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> If a given sender is well-identified and is known to have a good
> anti-spam policy in force, should mail from that server be exempt
> from challenge-response and delivered straight to the end-user?
> Would you configure your system that way?

A ``good anti-spam policy'' is too vague for me to trust, primarily
because it has no accountability.  Many ISPs have good intentions and
strict usage policies, but are abused by their users.  The abusing
account is promptly shut down, but that doesn't stop the spam that
they already sent me.

> So, what do you guys think?  Would you consider exempting (e.g.)
> BondedSenders?

On the other hand, mechanisms which have more severe repercussions for
spamming such as BondedSender are more likely to be trusted by me.  An
ISP for example would be more careful about who they let use the
Bonded server.  They wouldn't let their dial-up population use it
because of the abuse factor.

So, yes, I would consider exempting BondedSenders.  In general, I'm in
favour of any mechanism that allows senders to safely circumvent
TMDA's challenge/response system.

BondedSender is in principle very similar to Habeas[1], which I
support in my own TMDA configuration.  Any message containing the
Habeas Warrant Mark will be allowed[2] through my TMDA.

Should TMDA support these mechanisms out of the box?  I don't think
so.  I've provided the ability to support them easily, but I feel
uncomfortable turning them on by default.  I think the individual or
site should make that choice for themselves.

So, it should be easy to exempt Bonded Senders in TMDA by using a
'pipe' rule.  We could probably even use the script they provide for
procmail[3] after reversing the exit return codes.  Untested, but
something like this should work:

# Accept mail from Bonded Senders
pipe '/path/to/procmail-bsp.sh' ok

It would be nice if they provided a way to test such configurations
through an autoresponder address which generated mail from a Bonded
Sender.  Perhaps I'll inquire about this.

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://www.habeas.com/
[2]  http://tmda.net/faq.cgi?req=all#7.3
[3]  http://www.bondedsender.org/productsupport/#procmail
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