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Re: [ietf-dkim] DKIM Threat Analysis v0.06

2005-08-19 17:07:48
At 09:08 18-08-2005, Scott Kitterman wrote:
It isn't entirely clear to me exactly where DKIM wants to live in this chain. Is it a tool for the SMTP server to reject messages from SMTP clients that are doing something unauthorized? Is it a tool for post-acceptance filtering and routing in the MDA? Is it a tool meant to give MUAs information to display to end users?

There has been a lot of discussion about rejection. Up to now, we have "rules" and RBLs to reject "bad" messages. Mail filtering also has a negative impact on mail delivery. DKIM also provides the building block for whitelisting mail. It can also be abused as we have seen in the discussion about replay attacks.

Given the transient nature of information in DNS, I think that any technology that relies on DNS needs to be primarily a tool for the MTA with the potential for secondary use at the MDA level if the latencies are low enough. For MUAs, results need to be captured by the MTA/MDA for display by upgraded MUAs.

The MUA may not be on an "always-on" connection or it may not have the capabilities to do DKIM verification. That is where the Authentication-Results header comes in.

Regards,
-sm
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