Subject: [dnsext] error in RFC 5782

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:06:55 +0000

i had no idea this existed until somebody mentioned it to me today.  it says:

   Many network managers wanted to use the RBL to block unwanted e-mail,
   but weren't prepared to use a BGP feed.  Rand and Vixie created a
   DNS-based distribution scheme that quickly became more popular than
   the original BGP distribution.  ...

this is wrong.  rand and vixie were executives, not technologists, at MAPS.
the person who created a DNS-based distribution scheme for the MAPS RBL was
eric ziegast, who was employed at that time as a sysadmin for vixie
enterprises where the MAPS RBL was at that time being hosted.  eric wanted
to get the BGP feed out of his routers since it was hurting him, and he
knew enough about Sendmail to make it all work using a simple DNS
technique.  the role of vixie and rand was just to say, well if that works,
let's offer it to other subscribers also.

if there was a patent on the technique we used, it would be in ziegast't name.
the fact that he was directly employed by vixie (and indirectly by rand) does
not make rand or vixie an inventor of this technique.  i would very much
like all public records to correctly give credit only where it is due.

john, please add this to the errata for RFC 5782 when you get a chance.  i
have given the full story during many public appearances over the years, but
ultimately it will be documents that inform historians, not my appearances.

i have also corrected <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNSBL#History_of_DNSBLs>.

if anyone is aware or becomes aware of some other document that gets these
historical details wrong, then please correct them yourself or bring them to
my attention.  i would *never* have thought of the DNSBL idea in this form,
as it relied on features in Sendmail that were much newer than i'd written
about with Fred Avolio in "Sendmail: Theory and Practice."