I have never been on the council before (I've twice previously declined nomination to run because I wasn't sure I had an appropriate amount of time to devote to the job).
Contact
SPF-related projects
- I was one of the initial members of the team of volunteers that anwsers support questions sent to the project via the web site contact form. I still participate in this effort.
- I have been the primary moderator and list-mom for the spf-help mailing list since late 2004 (initially I was appointed by Meng and the first Council later confirmed this role).
- I maintain the list of DNS providers that suport TXT records to assist people who have providers that don't support TXT.
- In July 2005 I published my SPF record validator. It is currently the primary online tool for people to check SPF records. It uses the pyspf SPF library.
- pyspf, assistant maintainer for pyspf. Implemented many of the changes necessary to update pyspf for RFC 4408 compliance. Packaged the updates for Debian and Ubuntu. The Debian updates are pending and the Ubuntu updates have been accepted for the upcoming Feisty Fawn release schedule for April of 2007. I believe this will be the first Linux distribution released with an RFC 4408 compliant SPF library. I have also made contact with developers of many of the programs that use pyspf and made sure they were aware of the new pyspf.
- I am an active member of the webmaster team. I have worked both to transition from the old site to the new one and to improve/update the content on the site.
- My ESP service provides MX services for openspf.org and the projects e-mail based SPF test address.
- I am also trying to help other SPF programs get accepted into Ubuntu Linux. I've worked with Julian Mehnle to get his new Mail::SPF library into Ubuntu. It's been submitted and is waiting for packages on which it depends to be processed and accepted (I submitted those with Julian's assistance too).
- I have also been an active participant in the IETF's DKIM working group since it's inception.
History
I have been involved in the SPF project since early 2004. I became involved because I was concerned that the design, at that time, did not adequately address the concerns of small or non-technical domain owners. I believe that the final design in RFC 4408 is significantly improved from this perspective.
Most of my focus on the project has been trying to assist people with and to improve documentation/provide tools to make it easier for people to publish SPF records. Recently I've been working on making it easier for mail server operators to check SPF records too.
2007 Agenda
I believe that the project's focus in 2007 should be on evangelizing SPF. We need to let people know about it. We need to improve the tools to make it easier to implement. This is what I've been working on and this is what I will encourage others to work on if elected.
I believe that SPF is RFC 4408 for the next few years. We have a large constituency of record publishers and deployed software that we have a duty to protect. If there are compatible extensions that can be made to encourage more SPF record publishing and checking that support the mission of preventing unauthorized use of domains in e-mail, I am in favor of them. I will vigorously oppose proposals that break the installed base.
ToDo List for 2007:
- RFC 4408 compliant SPF libraries in major linux distributions
- Packages in Debian as well as Ubuntu and other derivatives to allow Postfix operators to 'apt-get install' all software needed to check SPF.
- Continue to improve web and e-mail validators
- Continue to help users on spf-help and contact form submissions
- Continue to improve documentation on the web site
- Help make a better record wizard
- Work on a 'new' version of SPF that will integrate SPF with other related technologies such as DK/DKIM, PGP, and S/MIME.
Status for 2007
Debian
- pyspf updated to 2.0.3 (4408 compliant now), python-policy server 0.3 in Debian Unstable.
Ubuntu
- pyspf updated to 2.0.3 (4408 compliant now), python-policy server accepted - One way to apt-get install spf checking for Postfix in the next release.
- Julian's Mail::SPF perl library has been accepted. An update to Meng's Postfix policy server that uses Mail::SPF instead of Mail::SPF::Query has been accepted. This is option number 2 to apt-get install spf checking for Postfix in the next release. The current version also corrects a long standing design flaw in the policy server - multi-recipient mail will no longer cause multiple Recieved SPF headers to be inserted.
- SPF is mentioned in the release notes for Ubuntu 7.04 - Feisty Fawn.
Opensuse
- Boyd Lynn Gerber is packaging the python library and associated programs. They should make opensuse 10.3.
