SPF: it's NOT AT ALL about SPAMfiltering... [LWN.net]

SPF: it's NOT AT ALL about SPAMfiltering...

Posted Jun 15, 2006 16:42 UTC (Thu) by zmi (guest, #4829)
In reply to: SPF: yes, ma'am by nim-nim
Parent article: SPF on vger

People keep believing that SPF is to filter SPAM. That's not the target.
SPF can *only* say if an e-mail is forged or not.

If you setup in SPF that from lwn.net only host 1.1.1.1 is allowed to
send, and some server checks SPF and gets a mail from lwn.net from host
2.2.2.2, then it can discard it as forged. That's it.

The fact that SPAM very often sends with forged addresses is just a side
effect. There are other tools for SPAM.

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