The Registry serves as a "clearing house" for the sharing of authentication and reputation data on domains that authorize the operation of Internet Transmitters.  Authentication data can be for any widely-accepted authentication method a domain owner may chose to offer; we have no preference.  Reputation data can come from many independent rating services.  Receivers will chose which ones they trust.

When a receiver wants to check the identity and reputation of an unknown sender, it queries the Registry and gets all the information needed in one simple packet.  The time-consuming process of determining what authentication methods a sender offers, gathering authentication and reputation data from various places, and digesting it to a simple text record, is all done in advance, so the response to the query is quick.  The use of standard DNS servers allows the Registry to be replicated worldwide, and scaled to whatever size is needed.

The Registry is free for senders and small receivers.  We ask for voluntary contributions from the largest receivers.  We make things easy for senders, so there is no excuse for not publishing accurate authentication data.  Initially, senders have a default record, which authorizes transmitters anywhere in their entire IP range, as allocated by one of the five Regional Registries.  Any zombies or other domains using that range will find it easy to forge the sender's domain name.  When a sender realizes that is happening, they will quickly assert control of their Registry record, and "de-authorize" all transmitters but their own.  This is our solution to the "chicken-and-egg" problem that has plagued email authentication for years.

Our system is entirely voluntary, not depending on government regulations or new Internet standards, and not encumbered by a need to make ever-increasing profits.  We expect it to grow the way all open-source projects grow, by simply providing the best solution at the lowest possible cost.

See http://open-mail.org for current information.
Fast, reliable, and trusted communications for all law-abiding citizens of the world.  That is the promise of the Internet, and our goal as an organization.  To reach this goal we need a universally-accepted way to verify the identity and assess the reputation of an unknown sender.  We offer our Registry of Internet Transmitters {TM} as one possible solution.
Open-Mail.org              Draft 21-Aug-08
Status 21-Aug-08:
- The Registry is working smoothly, with a three-level hierarchy of DNS servers that can be scaled to any number needed.
- Records have been compiled for the few dozen senders who regularly appear in the inboxes of our beta testers.  Their inboxes are now almost entirely free of spam, and no messages are lost.  We are ready to try a larger group of recipients.
- We need to further automate the process of scanning log files, accumulating statistics, and updating Registry records. Currently the records are updated manually.  We need a webpage for senders to update their own Registry records.
- Our Model Receiver software (Border Patrol MTA {tm}) is working, generating headers and tags showing the authentication status and reputation or spam score of each message.  Still need many enhancements, adding user options, etc., to make it nice.  We also need a webpage for recipients to set their own options.

- Work on all the above is on hold until we get some funding.  We can't "go public" with a service that isn't as good from day one as the commercial spam-blocking services.  This will require a commitment larger than we can expect from a few part-time volunteers.