SPF for e-mail blocking
Unfortunately, I hosed both my desktop system and my router setup the other day (don’t ask). In trying to reconstruct things, I ran across this ‘SPF’ feature for mail sender authentication that my DNS provier (easyDNS) is now supporting.
The basic theory is that it’ll check the ‘reply-to’ address with the originating domain of the e-mail, and if that domain is not authorized to send e-mail from that address, the e-mail gets stamped with a big warning (or rejected outright).
I’m not sure at how useful it will actually be to slow down spam — after all, there are lots of insecure domains out there — but it took me like 15 minutes to set up for my domains so why not, eh? I used this SPF setup wizard to make life easier.
Now, all I have to do is stop forwarding the e-mail for my whois address to my regular inbox. I get a ridiculous number of spam messages a day in there. I can’t wait till CIRA implements their new policy of non-public addresses…
There’s also this interesting Bandwidth Log for my router. It was easy enough to set up but making it reload whenever I reboot the router is a little more involved and I’ll pass on it for now… and making it backup the tracked data… well, forget it! ;)
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