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Re: [ietf-dkim] on the suitability of the From header field

2005-08-13 17:24:29
domainkeys-feedbackbase02(_at_)yahoo(_dot_)com wrote:
If end-users today are accustomed to thinking the message was sent by RFC2822.From, they will need to be educated, and they may also need better MUAs that make the distinction clear. But I don't think most end-users are this naive or incapable of understanding the difference.


Sure. But do end-users want to, and should they have to?

Just because a rickety old standard technically makes it possible to
distinguish between a confusion of originating, authoring, authorizing,
resending and non-delivery report addresses, does not imply that it should  be
imposed on the billion or so end-users who have little choice but to use that
standard.

And just because you prefer a simple-minded view of communications doesn't mean that such a view should be imposed on the billion or so end-users who use email.

People using snail mail have little or no trouble understanding the difference between the name and address on the outside of the paper envelope, the name and addresss at the top of the letter, and the name of the person who signs the letter. Each of these names/addresses serves different purposes which are easily understood. Email is no different, and no more difficult to understand.

Existing email user agents might blur the distinction between these, but this is a user interface problem rather than a protocol problem. And user interfaces _will_ have to adapt to take advantage of email authentication, because email authentication creates new conditions that users will need to be able to distinguish from existing conditions.

It's also an interesting presumption that it is the end-user that needs
educating about the, er, richness of email addressing.

Go back and reread what I wrote.  I don't actually presume such.

Perhaps it's more important for us implementors to be educated about how 
end-users really want to
think about email addressing and adapt our thinking to their needs?

Fine. Just don't try to lump all end-users in the same bucket, and don't insist that the mail protocol be crippled in order to accommodate the most simple-minded of end-users. Email needs to be able to serve a wide variety of users.

Personally, I'm developing the suspicion that end-users have been using email
long enough now that we should be noticing the demand for complex
originating/sender addressing - especially in such a competitive and diverse
marketplace. But at least from where I sit, the evidence is slim at best.

We're certainly seeing wide and quite legitimate uses of differences between header From and return-path. We're also seeing increasing use of subaddresses.

Keith

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