On 07/01/2014 05:35 PM, Antony Stone wrote:
This may be true, but in the example that you give, tech support should really
have provided a better (ie: more reliable) mechanism for contact than email if
the customer is entitled to (expect) a prompt response.
There are multiple methods. But customers (New, as well as previously
existing) do expect that their emails will be received promptly. This is
the way people use email. We have no way of controlling what new
customers contacting use expect.
Our minority opinions, as admins, of what email should be today don't
count for that much. We as admins, our predecessors. our predecessors,
and their predecessors, are responsible for the way that we have failed
our users today. The email system we use is incredibly naive.
There's got to be a way to do this right. SPF is a big step forward. But
we don't trust it. An SPF fail gets, what? 2.0 points in spamassassin?
An SPF fail should be end of game for spam. But no one trusts SPF well
enough to do that. Because sending email server admins don't take SPF
seriously enough for receiving servers to take *them* seriously. (And
which of us does not handle sending and receiving?)
SPF could go a long way toward forming a basis for fixing email. It
can't do it by itself. All it does is give basic assurance that "My
sending domain is what I claim it is.". But that is exactly the rock
solid basis that a real solution could be based upon.
The email system is and always has been, from a security standpoint, a
joke. And SA is an amazing and wonderful kluge that tries to sweep the
fact under the rug as best it can. No disrespect intended to SA. But if
it could absolutely identify the sending domain, with confidence, that
would be a big step forward.
Spammers could still abuse. But then reputation would really mean something,
I know that it's a complicated problem. And it's a social problem. We
admins can't agree on a solution. A month ago I was pretty ignorant,
didn't know about sender protection schemes, etc. So I still kind of
have a foot in both the camps of enlightenment and ignorance. But I can
report that there are still a lot of people in that ignorance camp, over
there. And I certainly cannot claim to be entirely in the enlightenment
camp.
But such is life. ;-)
That said, I *do* think that it is possible for email to work just the
way users expect it to work, based upon their experience with it an
arbitrary number of years ago. It all depends upon admins as a
community. Or we might fail. I dunno.
I'm just glad SA is here to fill in the gap, and perhaps to herd in a
better future.
-Steve
