yahoo to use public key technology for anti-spam

[Steven M. Bellovin]

In message <Pine.LNX.4.58.0312071154330.18171 at bolt.sonic.net>, bear writes:
>

>>But you should be sending mails via *your* SMTP server, and should be
>>connecting to that SMTP server using SSL and authentication.  Open relays
>>encourage spam.  People shouldn't be relaying mail via just any SMTP server.
>
>This is generally how I work it.  I sit down at any hotspot and I
>get network connectivity.  But all the hotspot is ever going to see
>of my browsing, email, and anything else I like to keep private is
>SSH packets to my home machine, or encrypted X packets running
>between the X server on my laptop and X clients on my home machine.
>
>A bit of lag is acceptable. Sending private mail via untrusted
>SMTP servers is not.

That isn't Carl's point.  He may very well be using a trustworthy SMTP 
server, via a secure tunnel.  The issue is whether he has to use a 
server owned by the owner of his return address.  

I use a variety of email addresses, for various reasons.  I have my 
usual work account, some university accounts, a few personal accounts, 
one I reserve for EBay use, etc.  I also use several different SMTP 
servers to send my email.  I *always* have a secure tunnel set up; in 
fact, Postfix on my laptop is hard-wired to send to port 20025 on 
127.0.0.1.  Of course, where that ends up will vary, but it's not in a 
one-to-one correspondence with the sending address I use.  The Yahoo 
scheme would apparently require that each email I send be routed via 
the domain owner's SMTP server.  

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb


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