Registry of Internet Transmitters                          DRAFT 31-Dec-08

This is a registry of domains operating Internet Transmitters, provided by Open-Mail.org, for the benefit of email receivers. Our
purpose is to provide a common location for receivers to find information on the identity and reputation of sender domains. 
Data to authenticate Sender Identities is provided by the owners of those identities, via their DNS records.  Reputation data is provided by independent rating services.

Info for Senders
To use the Registry, you must declare your Sender's Identity in your HELO
command at the start of an email session, and you must publish in DNS
the IP addresses you authorize to use that Identity. You may also register
your Identity with us, but that is optional.

We must see responses from "postmaster@<Identity>" and
"abuse@<Identity>".  In other words, if you want receivers to trust your
mail, you must have a real domain name as your Identity, and be willing to
deal with problems involving abuse of that name.

Until you publish your authorized addresses, you will be assigned a default
record based on data from your Regional Registry.  After you publish, we
will copy the record from your server at least once a week.  Registration
will allow you to make immediate updates via our web interface and
provide you with alerts and daily summaries of any spam sent under your
name.

Info for Receivers
To use the Registry, send us a DNS query each time an unknown sender
requests a mail session with your Border MTA.  We will return a packet
with sufficient information to verify the identity and assess the reputation of
that sender.

The easiest way to set up a Border MTA is to subscribe to an existing
service.  Alternatively, you can copy our Model Email Receiver to your own
machine.  See our Operations Manual for details.  You can also install just
the Border Patrol package on a shared machine running Linux, or even
build these packages into your own MTA.  All software and documentation
is open-source.

Registry services are free for small receivers, and only a small fee for
large receivers.  Most of this revenue goes to independent services that
provide domain ratings, and do the hard work of investigating fraud and
separating clever crooks from honest domain owners.

Info for Sender Agents
If you are relaying mail for other organizations, you should consider using a different Identity for mail from your most trusted clients.  A trusted name is a valuable asset.  It takes a long time to build that trust, and only a short
time for one careless client to ruin it.

As the owner of a domain name, you are in complete control of your Registry record, all except the ratings, of course.  The ratings will depend on how well you control the abuse of your name.

Technical Support
The Registry staff can help with problems using our web interfaces, and
with general questions, but we do not offer support for any MTA or
spam-filtering software or authentication methods.  We also do not get
involved in disputes over domain ratings.  For help with software or
methods, see the websites of the companies or groups promoting them. 
To question a rating, talk to the service which provided it.  For general
information on email authentication see these links and our FAQ.

To Do:
- interactive pages for sender registration, record updates
- more pages for "Under Construction" links
- more Notes & Definitions.  Sample
- better graphics, professional finish