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Re: [Asrg] Re: Body signature subgroup and the forwarding project

2005-07-27 20:18:56
The root of the problem is various types of modifications made by
SMTP and other transport, and is a well-known problem ...

The issue isn't so much MTAs as network and gateway issues. ...

Yes, we all know that.  My goal is to collect some real life data on
what the modifications likely to happen to messages in transit
actually are, to see if there are canonicalizations that will help a
message to survive the transit MTAs that people really use.

Simply passing messages through plain vanilla MTAs in a pure SMTP
context won't reveal much about the problems that can be encountered
in the actual global mail system.

You appear to completely misunderstand the goals of systems like DKIM.
If we wanted S/MIME, we all know where to find it, and we understand
what it does and why it works the way it does.  Little can survive a
trip through an X.400 gateway or for that matter an Exchange server.
Fortunately, X.400 gateways and Exchange servers aren't used as
transit MTAs on the Internet, so they're not very interesting in this
application.

The point of DKIM is the sign messages in a way that will survive
SMTP message transit and be verifiable without a PKI, not to be a
bullet-proof signature for the ages.  Please see the DKIM drafts if
you want to contribute here.

R's,
John



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