[ale] Gmail accepts spam when you use email forwarding

[Jim Popovitch]

>From Google's perspective, Line 08 could always be spoofed so Google
only relies on what Google knows to be true.

-Jim P.

On 2009-12-15, Richard Bronosky <Richard at bronosky.com> wrote:
> Let me know if Google is in the wrong, or I am crazy.
> What I have is a postfix server on slicehost that I use solely for the
> purpose setting up @bronosky.com email forwarders for members of my
> family, and as an outgoing mail server (which I have Gmail using!).
> Most of us are using Gmail now, but some of the stragglers are still
> on Hotmail or Yahoo!. For the past week 15 times a day I have been
> receiving and reporting as spam the same message (nearly) with very
> similar heads.
>
> line01: Delivered-To: richardbronosky at gmail.com
> line02: Received: by 10.220.108.106 with SMTP id e42cs49574vcp; Tue,
> 15 Dec 2009 00:24:04 -0800 (PST)
> line03: Received: by 10.216.90.196 with SMTP id
> e46mr2408469wef.194.1260865444149; Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:24:04 -0800
> (PST)
> line04: Return-Path: <nmike at bronosky.com>
> line05: Received: from slice1.bronosky.com (slice1.bronosky.com
> [174.143.204.116]) by mx.google.com with ESMTP id
> t12si19704611gvd.5.2009.12.15.00.24.02; Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:24:03
> -0800 (PST)
> line06: Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain
> of nmike at bronosky.com designates 174.143.204.116 as permitted sender)
> client-ip=174.143.204.116;
> line07: Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com:
> best guess record for domain of nmike at bronosky.com designates
> 174.143.204.116 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=nmike at bronosky.com
> line08: Received: from alixpartners.com (unknown [116.68.243.172]) by
> slice1.bronosky.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 6D0A017643 for
> <deadmail at bronosky.com>; Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:26:44 +0000 (UTC)
> line09: From: VIAGRA ® Reseller <deadmail at bronosky.com>
> line10: To: deadmail at bronosky.com
> line11: Subject: Deal of the Day: Save 76%
> line12: MIME-Version: 1.0
> line13: Content-Type: text/html; charset="ISO-8859-1"
> line14: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> line15: Message-Id: <20091215082645.6D0A017643 at slice1.bronosky.com>
> line16: Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:26:44 +0000 (UTC)
>
> the part that really sucks are line06 and line07. All mail for
> @bronosky.com is going to come to Google forwarded from
> slice1.bronosky.com because that's the way it is. Where I believe
> Google is goofing up is that they are SPF checking the IP from line05
> instead of the IP from line08. So, the trick to spamming any Gmail
> user who forwards from another domain is the set the From: header to
> an address @ that domain. Seems like a huge fail to me.
>
> Please opine.
>
> --
> .!# RichardBronosky #!.
>
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