kdemail.net as sender address

[Ben Cooksley]

On Sat, Sep 19, 2020 at 7:57 PM Thomas Friedrichsmeier <
thomas.friedrichsmeier at gmx.de> wrote:

> Hi!
>

Hi Thomas,


>
> In addition to @kde.org mailboxes for core developers and KDE e.V.
> members, KDE.org offers @kdemail.net-aliases for contributors. This is
> quite neat in allowing to keep a stable - and dedicated - contact
> address for contributions across KDE. As such it is great for use in
> copyright headers and as git commit email.
>
> However, what about discussion related to contributions? I for one
> would love to use an @kdemail.net address for KDE-related mails both on
> public mailing lists and in private exchange. Admittedly, getting
> contacted about a message written months or years in the past is a rare
> (but possible) exception, so a stable address may not be super
> important in this context. However, it would still offer the comfort of
> separating project-related mail from e.g. family or work related mail.
> It would also "look nice" in giving KDE contributors an immediately
> visible standing when talking to external parties (distributions /
> library maintainers / users).
>
> According to a quick survey of my local mail archives, such use of
> @kdemail.net seems to have been _somewhat_ common for a while, but seems
> to be essentially nonexistent after about 2017. The reason for that, I
> *assume* could be that it has become increasingly difficult to use
> @kdemail.net as a sender address. Many mail providers will refuse to
> even let you send from a different address, and many (receiving) mail
> providers will look upon a mail received from a non-SPF-sanctioned
> server with suspicion. A quick and ridiculously non-representative test
> among three mail providers suggests that only one out of three will
> allow me to use thomas.friedrichsmeier at kdemail.net as a sender address
> for a test email, and of the two others, one will classify the mail as
> SPAM upon receiving it (without giving human readable reasons).
>

It is relatively common now for providers to restrict sending of email to
just the addresses they own to limit abuse.

The only webmail provider I am aware of that allows you to send as another
domain is Google, and they require you to send the emails via that domain's
infrastructure.


>
> Long story short: How would you (sysadmin, in particular) feel about
> the following:
> 1) Create an SPF-record specifying mail.kde.org as the legitimate
> sender of @kdemail.net mails.
>

Not sure how this got missed, but it has now been done.
I've also setup DKIM verification at the same time.


> 2) Allow and encourage contributors to send @kdemail.net-mails via
> mail.kde.org. This would still be for sending, only. Incoming mail would
> continue to be forwarded to some external mailbox.
>

This is already permitted, however the community member in question needs
to apply to Sysadmin to be granted permissions to send email via Letterbox.
Previously we had granted this automatically to all Developers and members
of the KDE e.V., however this had to be changed following issues we had
with people's Identity accounts being compromised and used to send spam.


>
> --
>
> Disclaimer: As you may have guessed, I'm currently in the process of
> replacing my primary mail provider/address, and looking for a decent
> long-term solution, personally.
>
> Regards
> Thomas
>

Regards,
Ben Cooksley
KDE Sysadmin
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