ietf-asrg
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Re: [Asrg] seeking comments on new RMX article

2003-05-04 14:21:52
On Sun, 4 May 2003 13:27:23 -0700 (PDT) 
Mike Rubel <asrg(_at_)mikerubel(_dot_)org> wrote:

I'm in exactly the same boat here--multiple accounts on different
machines without outbound smarthosts.

I'm in a slightly different position to that: multiple accounts on the
same machine.  Umm, actually its slightly worse than that thru
repetition.

This is not an insurmountable problem, though.  When the administrator
of a system decides to implement RMX records, he will need to provide
SMTP-AUTH or VPN or even a port-25 ssh tunnel.  Many (most?) sites
already do something like this, but it's only fair to factor it into
the work involved in implementing the RMX approach.  I have added a
note to that effect at the bottom of the page:

An additional cost there is MTA configuration, a non-trivial problem.
Consider the case of someone with multiple accounts etc, using a
non-SMTP based MUA, an MUA which uses localhost SMTP only, or even more
simply, an MUA which doesn't support multiple configurations for
outbound smarthost.  In any/all of those cases support is required from
the localhost MTA -- which in the general case can be assumed to not be
available.

Even with this cost factored in, however, I still believe that the RMX
solution is far better (smaller effort required to implement and fewer
things broken) than any other solution I have seen to the email
forgery problem.

I've a fondness for forward signed Received: headers, but that attacks a
different aspect of the forgery problem.

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw(_at_)kanga(_dot_)nu               He lived as a devil, eh?           
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
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