[DC LoCo] Annoying Gmail banner

[Keith Howell]

On 06/30/2011 05:34 PM, Mackenzie Morgan wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 5:32 PM, Lucas Moten <lucas.moten at gmail.com> wrote:
>> This reply is sent from within gmail, as a reply-all, such that Morgan is in
>> the list of TO addresses, and the list is in the CC addresses.  The previous
>> message I sent, I hit reply, deleted the addresses in TO and replaced with
>> the list address, which looks like what you may have done, which would
>> coincide with my getting a warning banner for your reply.  Kevin's reply
>> looks like a reply all with me in the TO and the list as CC and I got no
>> warning banner on that one.  So.. if nobody gets a warning banner on this
>> message, then it would appear that the best way to reply would be to use
>> Reply All
> 
> Ugh.
> 
> Dear Google:
> Just because your silly mail client doesn't have basic functionality
> like "Reply to List" doesn't mean you need to claim users of
> full-featured clients are phishers.
> 


The header for one of the recent messages is:

==========================================================
Delivered-To: keith.c.howell at gmail.com
Received: by 10.68.49.200 with SMTP id w8cs138659pbn;
        Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:48:48 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.216.205.160 with SMTP id j32mr1367644weo.36.1309470526580;
        Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:48:46 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <ubuntu-us-dc-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com>
Received: from chlorine.canonical.com (chlorine.canonical.com
[91.189.94.204])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTP id
e43si5630737wes.7.2011.06.30.14.48.44;
        Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:48:46 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 91.189.94.204 is neither permitted
nor denied by best guess record for domain of
ubuntu-us-dc-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com) client-ip=91.189.94.204;
==========================================================

So it looks like google is complaining that the ubuntu.com email servers
are not publishing a SPF record. Which is true. When I look at their
servers:

=================
kch:~$ dig ubuntu.com txt

; <<>> DiG 9.7.0-P1 <<>> ubuntu.com txt
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 43722
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;ubuntu.com.			IN	TXT

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
ubuntu.com.		3282	IN	SOA	ns1.canonical.com. hostmaster.canonical.com.
2011062701 10800 3600 604800 3600
=================


The TXT record should contain the SPF information, eg:


=================
kch:~$ dig spf.psmtp.com txt

; <<>> DiG 9.7.0-P1 <<>> spf.psmtp.com txt
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 4898
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;spf.psmtp.com.			IN	TXT

;; ANSWER SECTION:
spf.psmtp.com.		7179	IN	TXT	"v=spf1 ip4:64.18.0.0/20
ip4:207.126.144.0/20 ip4:74.125.148.0/22 ip4:74.125.244.0/22
ip4:63.71.11.123/32 ip4:63.71.11.124/32 ip4:63.71.8.100/30
ip4:63.71.8.104/30 ip4:63.71.8.108/31 ~all"
=================

Having said the above, I do agree that with an early adoption like this,
gmail is training their users to ignore warnings. Trying to get external
organizations to add SPF records is like herding cats.

BTW, if you want to skip the messages, just use an external mail client
like Thunderbird :)

-- 
Keith