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[Asrg] Re: Washington Post: Earthlink to Deploy a Challenge-Response System for Fightin

2003-05-07 20:20:34
<waltdnes(_at_)waltdnes(_dot_)org> wrote in message 
news:20030508011739(_dot_)GA2286(_at_)m1800(_dot_)(_dot_)(_dot_)
  Wouldn't it be possible for a mailing list to give whitelisting
criteria on a webpage ?

Yes, it defenitely would, but then the questions become:
What format is the "whitelisting criteria" in?
What web page? ie: where does my MUA look?
And how do you pick a standard location that works for everyone?

The answer I came up with is a public database that any MUA can look in, and that any list operator can create an entry in. The entrys would follow a standard convention, and a standard method of quirying the database would be developed for easy implimentation at the MUA end.

Basicaly it would just be a way of facilitating any out of band transfer of information that would be required, but it could use smtp protocals for backward compatability. uses could include IP addressess, PGP signature keys, anything.

I guess it would be a sort of certificate issuer, only the contents of the certificates would be up to the entry creator, and the only identity it would verify would be that the entry creator had access to the address mentioned in the certificate(s).

the database entry could even be a format declaration, and a website to look at, but then you need to pick or develop a format declaration language, and ensure that MUA's can "compile" it, and understand the resulting page. Hedache city, and un-necisary complexity. The better choice is, I think, to allow standard pieces of info, and write standard interfaces to them.
sorry i was rambling.

  A mailing list could give its MTA name as outbound.bad.example.com and
the "host" command ("nslookup" on some OS's) could get a list
corresponding IP addresses, and check to see whether the sender is on
that list.  Note that I specified name, not address.  This allows the
list to move to a new ISP by editing its DNS zone entries.  No need for
end-users to change anything in this case.

Yes a mailing list could give this and that, and it could be checked this or that way. But a standard method, with standard tools, and a standard method of accessing it would be usefull to many more people.

Tell them if you do "this", you don't have to worry cause the other people just have to do "that" in order to understand. I think that's true regardless of the subject.

John Fenley

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