BEWARE, however, that SPF is a hotly contested technology that breaks forwarding in many cases
True, but if your domain is used for forwarding, you can simply not publish SPF records, or publish wide-open ones. However, this is really something for the administrator of the domain to decide based on how his/her domain works.
and may not be the all-in-one spam savior that the lazy sysadmin is looking for.
I agree. It's definitely NOT a spam savior.
IMO, anyone who thinks SPF is an anti-spam technology is completely confused, misinformed or just an idiot.
SPF is an anti-forgery technology, nothing more. Forgery may be a persistent problem related to spam, and preventing forgery makes tracking spam easier, but that doesn't make anti-forgery technologies anti-spam technologies.
I also feel anyone who argues against the use of SPF on the basis of it not being effective in preventing spam to be missing the point. (but the forwarding issue IS a very valid point). Of course spammers can still spam with SPF around, it just becomes harder for them to pretend your domain sent the spam.
If you keep in mind what SPF is, and view it as that and nothing more grandiose, it's quite useful.
Just have a look over the mailing list archives for any MTA to see the range of opinions about SPF.
Agreed.
