[AusNOG] IPv6 reverse DNS and Mail ...

[Reuben Farrelly]

On 20/05/2013 4:05 PM, Beeson, Ayden wrote:
> Agreed, following the leader whether their view is wrong or right
> doesn’t help.
>
> And dropping china’s mail till they fix it actually sounds pretty good
> to me, nothing will get things fixed quick like it not working at all J
>
> If its legitimate and they want it, they will fix it.

That's fine until your local resident sales person comes to you and 
wants an explanation as to why a PO that is being sent from China or 
organisation X, hasn't yet come through.

"They don't have a PTR record" isn't an explanation that will cut it to 
non IT people, generally, and after the blank look has subsided you'll 
be invited to make it work by the business owner/manager who stands to 
lose out on the sale due to that email not coming through, because of 
such policy.  That's not an argument that IT people will usually win.

IMHO the lack of reverse PTR should be at best just an "indicator" of a 
potential spam source.  There are plenty of dynamic IPs which have 
reverse PTR's, and some legitimate mail which comes from IP's that don't 
have reverse PTR's at all.  Enough inconsistency out there to not want 
to apply a blanket blacklist rule to this criteria alone.

Technology exists to support business operation, not the other way around.

[And for the record, I do believe in setting up reverse PTR records, but 
I also know that in the real world not everyone else gets that, or has 
the ability to have it changed, so why penalise them?].

Reuben