Clocktower Law

09/22/2026

Treehouse!

ALBUM: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1968378906518171&type=3

EVENT: https://www.treehouse.red/

08/26/2026

I miss the good old days of RFC 821 (SMTP):

https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc821/

The current DKIM/DMARC/SPF mess is just that - a mess. About 1/3 of my incoming email messages fail the DKIM/DMARC/SPF test, including emails from the USPTO and major clients.

To make matters worse, Google has decided to ignore the "from" headers in the failed cases, making email from non-DKIM/DMARC/SPF-compliant senders look like it's from my domain, which of course it is not.

This makes my Gmail filters not work. Google says this is my problem. It's not, really. I'm compliant, VERY compliant, and I'm also very tired of this email security theatre.

So can we go back to RFC 821? Or maybe UUCP? At least email worked back then!

P.S. If you get a bogus email from clocktowerlaw.com, then you can ignore it.

P.P.S. I once sent UUCP email from an airplane via dial-up (circa 1994). Those were the days!

The objective of Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is to transfer mail reliably and efficiently. SMTP is independent of the particular transmission subsystem and requires only a reliable ordered data stream channel. Obsoletes RFC 788, 780, and 772.

12/21/2024

Clocktower has been a founding sponsor of the Greater Boston chapter, Treehouse Boston, since 2018 (http://www.treehouse.red/).