Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications
    • Cybersecurity

    MS Caller ID Plan Boosts SMTP Authentication

    By
    Larry Seltzer
    -
    February 24, 2004
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Tuesday announced a proposed open standard to deter e-mail spoofing, a k a caller ID for e-mail. Microsofts proposal pitched to the security experts at the RSA Conference falls right in line with the emerging industry consensus that changes must be made to the e-mail infrastructure in order to make serious progress in the battle against spam.

      The actual “Caller ID for E-Mail” specification calls for a system that has more in common with competing proposals than it has separating them. Like the SPF (Sender Policy Framework) specification, the basic mechanism involves requiring domains that send messages to add records to their DNS that will allow recipients to determine the addresses of the authorized sending servers. Recipients can then see if the sender of a message is really authorized to do so.

      SMTP authentications systems like Caller ID wont stop spam in and of themselves, but they will make it possible for reputation systems from vendors such as Brightmail Inc., as well as simpler blacklists and whitelists, to be more effective. With a far smaller amount of spam surviving such challenges, filtering would also become more effective.

      Authentication would also put up a huge barrier to e-mail worms like MyDoom, Bagle and Sobig that have comprised the majority of malware attacks in recent years. These worms all use SMTP engines built into the attack code itself. With Caller ID, none of them would authenticate properly in their current form, and its not clear that virus authors would have an effective way to send authenticated mail on arbitrary systems they infected.

      There are differences between Caller ID and Sender Policy Framework, but they arent fundamental ones. The format of the records is different, and the method of comparing message headers to those records also differs. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

      At the same time, these differences wont change the basic fact that to implement either standard, owners of e-mail domains will have to upgrade their SMTP mail server (often known as a Message Transfer Agent or MTA) to one that supports the standard.

      Microsoft should be able to provide this capability in their Exchange Server by means of a plug-in, although its not clear which versions of Exchange they would support. Like SPF, Caller ID would require changes in the Message Transfer Agent to deal with forwarded mail accounts (accounts from which mail is simply moved on to another account, rather than being collected by the users mail client). And like SPF, Caller ID would authenticate just the domain of the sender, not the user within that domain.

      With so much in common, why doesnt Microsoft just adopt SPF? According to George Webb, Group Manager of Microsofts Antispam Technology and Strategy Team, the company decided that the differences are important.

      Next Page: The Differences Between Caller ID and Sender Policy Framework Plans

      The Differences Between Caller


      ID and Sender Policy Framework Plans”>

      One difference between the schemes is that with Caller ID the entire message is read, allowing the comparison to the valid sender addresses to be performed against the full header information. This could allow for a better analysis, and opens up the possibility that a modified e-mail client could be involved in the decision-making.

      The downside is that under Caller ID the Message Transfer Agent necessarily reads more spam than with Sender Policy Framework, wasting bandwidth and memory.

      Microsoft also argues that its use of XML to encode the DNS record information is more forward-looking, in that XML was designed to encode systems like this.

      Some critics have argued that the verbosity of XML will cause problems with the DNS protocol which is typically performed with User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and limited to 512-byte packets. Microsoft responded that its kept the XML vocabulary terse and the tags very small, and that there is a mechanism in the specification by which commands can span UDP datagrams.

      Sender Policy Framework has already been adopted by a large number of domains (7,693 as of February 24), including some famous destinations such as Symantec.com, Motleyfool.com and Oreilly.com.

      However, of all the domains currently advertising Sender Policy Framework records in their DNS, the one that really matters is Aol.com. With Microsoft implementing the Caller ID plan and Yahoo touting its own Domain Keys proposal, the good news is that all three of the largest mail providers in the United States are committed to SMTP authentication.

      The bad news is that they are committed to three different implementations.

      Bill Gates is correct that the Internet will become a test laboratory for the next few months, as major ISPs, ISVs and corporations evaluate the alternatives.

      The only mechanism for determining the winner will be standards groups such as the Internet Engineering Task Forces AntiSpam Research Group (ASRG), which moves at a speed unworthy of the Internet. And then theres the loosely-knit association between Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo! on spam control.

      In other words, its up to the big boys now.

      Security Center Editor Larry Seltzer has worked in and written about the computer industry since 1983. Be sure to check out eWEEK.coms Security Center at http://security.eweek.com for the latest security news, views and analysis.

      Be sure to add Our eWEEK.com Security news feed to your RSS newsreader:
      /zimages/7/19420.gifhttp://rssnewsapps.ziffdavis.com/eweeksecurity.xml

      More from Larry Seltzer

      Avatar
      Larry Seltzer
      Larry Seltzer has been writing software for and English about computers ever since—,much to his own amazement—,he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1983.He was one of the authors of NPL and NPL-R, fourth-generation languages for microcomputers by the now-defunct DeskTop Software Corporation. (Larry is sad to find absolutely no hits on any of these +products on Google.) His work at Desktop Software included programming the UCSD p-System, a virtual machine-based operating system with portable binaries that pre-dated Java by more than 10 years.For several years, he wrote corporate software for Mathematica Policy Research (they're still in business!) and Chase Econometrics (not so lucky) before being forcibly thrown into the consulting market. He bummed around the Philadelphia consulting and contract-programming scenes for a year or two before taking a job at NSTL (National Software Testing Labs) developing product tests and managing contract testing for the computer industry, governments and publication.In 1991 Larry moved to Massachusetts to become Technical Director of PC Week Labs (now eWeek Labs). He moved within Ziff Davis to New York in 1994 to run testing at Windows Sources. In 1995, he became Technical Director for Internet product testing at PC Magazine and stayed there till 1998.Since then, he has been writing for numerous other publications, including Fortune Small Business, Windows 2000 Magazine (now Windows and .NET Magazine), ZDNet and Sam Whitmore's Media Survey.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×