Re: Clueless anti-virus products/vendors (was Re: Sober)

From: Edward B. Dreger (eddy+public+)
Date: Wed Dec 07 2005 - 16:35:07 EST

  • Next message: Douglas Otis: "Re: Clueless anti-virus products/vendors (was Re: Sober)"

    DO> Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 16:26:16 -0800
    DO> From: Douglas Otis

    DO> I know of no cases where a malware related DSN would be generated by our

    Good.

    DO> products, nevertheless, DSNs are not Unsolicited Bulk Email.

    Huh? I get NDRs for mail that "I" sent. I do not want those NDRs. I
    did not request those NDRs. Those NDRs are not in response to a message
    I sent.

    I do not want backscatter NDR notices. I frankly don't care that
    WhizBangAV caught WormOfTheWeek on Susie Smith's corporate mail in
    Argentina from Billy Boo's PC in China... just because my address
    happened to be the subject of a joe jobbing worm.

    Really. Even reading and posting to NANOG is more important. ;-)

    DO> Not all email is rejected within the SMTP session. You are changing
    DO> requirements for recipients that scan incoming messages for malware. Fault
    DO> them for returning content or not including a null bounce-address. No one
    DO> can guarantee an email-address within the bounce-address is valid,

    Perhaps DSNs should be sent to the original recipient, not the purported
    sender. RFC-compliant? No. Ridiculous? Less so than pestering a
    random third party. Let the intended recipient communicate OOB or
    manually if needed.

    DO> furthermore a DSN could be desired even for cases where an authorization

    When auth fails, one knows *right then* c/o an SMTP reject. No bounce
    is necessary.

    DO> scheme fails. Why create corner cases?

    The corner case is that a virus _might_ actually have a realistic "From"
    address. :-)

    DO> DomainKeys and Sender-ID can not validate the bounce-address or the DSN.
    DO> Even with an SPF failure, a DSN should still be sent, as SPF fails in

    If you receive mail with

            From: <>

    coming from 10.10.10.10, and everquick.net SPF records indicate that IP
    address is bogus, how can you possibly justify "that mail may indeed
    have come from how it's apparently addressed"? Doubly so when a virus
    is known to spoof "from" addresses!

    Saying a DSN should be sent is just untenable.

    DO> several scenarios, and false positives are never 0%. BATV offers a
    DO> unilateral option that can effectively discard spoofed bounce-addresses.
    DO> When the AV software provides the DSN with a null bounce-address, BATV works
    DO> as advertised.

    Eddy

    --
    Everquick Internet - http://www.everquick.net/
    A division of Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/
    Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building
    Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national
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    ________________________________________________________________________
    DO NOT send mail to the following addresses:
     -*-  -*- 
    Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked.
    Ditto for broken OOO autoresponders and foolish AV software backscatter.
    

  • Next message: Douglas Otis: "Re: Clueless anti-virus products/vendors (was Re: Sober)"





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