BloJJ

This is Juan Julián Merelo Guervós English-language blog. He teaches computer science at the University of Granada, in southern Spain. Come back here to read about politics, technology, with a new twist

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The beginning of the end of spam?

I have always maintained that spam can only be eliminated through technical means. The main source of spam problems is that header forging is too easy; and thus blacklists can only have a limited effect.
However, that seems about to end: SPF, or Sender Permitted From (which has a Blog allows the receiver to check if the IP of the sender is effectively allowed to send email from that domain. It's indeed a very simple mechanism, just adding some lines to the DNS records.
And it seems about to end because it's catching up with the big ISPs: AOL will start publishing its SPF records, some companies like LaneChange are supporting it, and let's hope some other ISPs will follow soon.
Spanish ISPs, of course, including government and universities, will not start to use them in a couple of years or so... but it's a start.