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Re: [ietf-dkim] New Issue: 4.2 needs new Attack Item: InconsistentSignature vs Policy Attacks

2006-01-31 16:30:48

On Jan 31, 2006, at 2:51 PM, J.D. Falk wrote:

On 2006-01-31 08:30, Bill(_dot_)Oxley(_at_)cox(_dot_)com wrote:

If I do not publish any key records and a bad actor whips up an email purported to be from me with a fake signature attached, a non dkim compliant mta may have a rule that states "signed messages are probably okay" that might bypass some spam checking software. Before DKIM is fully adopted/deployed expect to see this happen,

1. As previously mentioned, anyone making reputation decisions based on an unauthenticated DKIM signature will quickly learn (if they're paying any attention at all) that they have made a mistake.

2. the "spammers have co-opted DomainKeys wtf omg" story was last year: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1732576,00.asp? kc=EWNKT0209KTX1K0100440

Re #2, the sky has not yet fallen.

By the same token, this story points out that basing reputations upon an authenticated DKIM signature is also a mistake. Reputations can only be based upon a "trusted" signing-domain. Once that trust is lost, the domain becomes just another email source. Most ISPs should be excluded from a trustworthy category. It may be possible to establish trust more selectively within a normally untrustworthy domain, provided there is a means to make explicit assurances that sources are validated by the sender and marked as trustworthy. Such assurances could prove useful for machine to machine communications, for example.

-Doug


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