If you care about the lack of a functional whitelist in domino, you care about this PMR

HCL Domino Domino Forum
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If your company has a problem with spam, you have an interest in PMR 17603,L6Q. The reason I am posting this information is to request those on maintenance to call Lotus and urge them to act on this PMR.

The subject of the PMR is a bug in the SMTP logic of domino, though Lotus refuses to acknowledge it as a bug (it’s a feature not implemented the way you would expect - lol). This bug has a big impact on the ability to control spam with domino.

Chris Linfoot has an excellent discussion of this bug on his website:

http://chris-linfoot.net/d6plinks/CWLT-6XYKQQ

In a nutshell, because the so-called whitelist function in domino does not function as a true whitelist, a domino admin is not able to turn on the the “Verify Connecting Host Name in DNS”. If a connecting smtp server fails the PTR test, even if it is on your whitelist, the email will be bounced.

If you cannot test for a valid PTR, then you have an exceedingly hard time defending against the growing flood of spam from zombies and other spam sources that typically lack valid PTRs and spew spam for hours before getting onto any major blacklists.

Is this a bug? I say yes. Everyone I have asked, other than those who work for Lotus, say yes. I refer anyone who thinks otherwise to the following definition of a whitelist from www.webopedia.com:

“In Internet terminology, a generic name for a list of e-mail addresses or IP addresses that are considered to be spam free. Whitelists are used frequently with e-mail applications to allow users to compile lists of senders they wish to receive e-mail from. This list overrides any blacklists and spam filters, and allows the e-mails to be delivered to the users inbox instead of filtered out as spam.”

If you would like to be able to turn on the PTR check in domino, then you must wait for this PMR to be addressed. This is the type of fix that does not require any change to a template, and could be made silently as part of 7.0.3 without any adverse impact. So it is highly suitable for inclusion in a maintenance release.

If you are interested in seeing this bug fixed, please contact your ibm rep and make your position clear. You have only a ton of spam to lose.

thank you

-Andy

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Subject: Agreed, but for now you could use a 3rd party cleaner . . .

Hi Andy,

Totally agree with your sentiment and thanks for bringing this PMR to the forum.

FYI: We were considering going down the white-list road, but eventually opted to route all our external mail through Message Labs; Since this change our problems with SPAM have not been solved completely, but have reduced significantly.

Until spammers get a conscience, our governments crack down on spammers, or we get some new e-mail technology that can better prevent/punish spammers, I certainly recommend considering a 3rd party message cleansing solution like this.

Hth.

James.