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Ferris Urges Sender ID Implementation
Messaging Pipeline
The reason Ferris is giving this advice is that, despite the confusion and controversy surrounding Sender ID and SPF authentication schemes, organizations are deploying these authentication technologies in one form or another. If you have not modified your DNS records to include SPF or Sender ID information, you r e-mail messages may be rejected as spam.
The report asserts that Microsoft will be using Sender ID in its Hotmail and MSN services beginning in the fourth quarter, and that AOL will begin checking for SPF records at about the same time. "These records are almost identical in form," says the report, which notes that both formats can be implemented without a problem.
Ferris asserts that MTA (Mail Transport Agent) vendors are announcing plans to incorporate Sender ID checking in their next software releases. In the short term, e-mail without Sender ID records may be merely flagged as spam, but in the long term, warns Ferris, it may be rejected outright.
The report ignores altogether Yahoo! Mail's recent move to implement its DomainKeys sender authentication scheme. "It's a good idea," said company president David Ferris when asked about the alternate technology, "perhaps we should have included it in our report." But it may be that if AOL and Microsoft are putting their e-mailbox muscle behind Sender ID, that Yahoo!'s technology may get left behind.
Legal Stuff
The issue of licensing remains and Ferris asserts that even if Microsoft and others in the industry do not resolve the controversy regarding Sender ID intellectual property, the authentication technology could become a standard. Microsoft's implementation of the technology in Hotmail, MSN Mail, and Exchange, may alone force the issue.
The report advises you to check with legal counsel if you have concerns about the possibility of violating Microsoft intellectual property rights in implementing Sender ID. Microsoft claims to have a patent application on portions of Sender ID, but Ferris has some advice here, too. "It's important to note," says the Ferris report, "that you do not need a license to publish Sender ID records . . . the license only applies to those implementing the receiver-side checking of Sender ID."
For those who are not sure how the technology works, the report has some help. There are about five pages of seriously geeky coding that will tell you exactly what your DNS records should look like for implementations of SPF, Sender ID, and both technologies.
To obtain further information about the report, and to obtain the report itself, visit page on this topic.
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