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RE: [ietf-dkim] new issue: requirement to enumerate receiver side benefits of SSP?

2006-11-30 10:54:49
Any harm would come from benign harm, misconfigured SSP and misled
receiver policies.

Mal harm would be from spoofing authors thru valid 3rd party signers 
From: joe(_at_)foo(_dot_)com
Sender: signer(_at_)bar(_dot_)com
DKIM: valid signature

When bar.com SSP states I sign all mail, foo.com has no SSP entry and
joe(_at_)foo(_dot_)com didn't author the message

Im sure there is other harmful methods

Bill Oxley
Messaging Engineer
Cox Communications
404-847-6397

-----Original Message-----
From: ietf-dkim-bounces(_at_)mipassoc(_dot_)org
[mailto:ietf-dkim-bounces(_at_)mipassoc(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of Michael Thomas
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 12:11 PM
To: dcrocker(_at_)bbiw(_dot_)net
Cc: ietf-dkim WG
Subject: [ietf-dkim] new issue: requirement to enumerate receiver
sidebenefits of SSP?

Dave Crocker wrote:


Michael Thomas wrote:
Hi,

One of the things I noticed from recent discussions is that we need
to
have clarity in SSP on what, exactly, qualifies as a valid signature
for
"I sign everything". 


Michael,

To carry your point farther than I suspect you intend:

From the virtually all of the SSP discussions, including recent 
exchanges, I keep thinking that we are starting with mechanism and 
only secondarily worrying about utility.  Hence the grou confusion 
that is persistent.

Some folks think of SSP as being for unsigned mail.  Some folks think 
of SSP to facilitate end-user interpretation.  Some folks think...  
And so on.

What we do not seem to have is anything that looks like a clear 
consensus about what problem is being solved and why it will be useful

to solve it.

Until the group settles on specific benefits to be obtained, for which

there is a solid basis to think recipient operators will find them 
useful, we are chasing our collective tail.

I suggest that discussion about technology -- that is, mechanisms -- 
should be deferred until the receive-side benefits (and, for that 
matter, the receive-side consuming component) are established.
Dave --

I view this exercise as a largely unproductive rathole. I think there's 
been a consensus
for quite a while that the information provided would be interesting to 
a pretty widely
varying set of people. Like dkim-base, I don't think we need to 
enumerate with any
precision what those benefits are as will undoubtably fall into the 
false dilemma of
trying to rank them, categorize them, etc. I can't see how that is 
helpful because it's
very clear that that way consensus does not lie. Nor need it, IMO.

On the sender/signer side there is a fairly simple benefit: SSP is an 
information
service which domains publish to give receivers more accurate details 
for their
delivery decisions. Nothing more. I think that's pretty much all of the 
justification
we need.

Much more interesting in my mind is whether there's potential *harm*
that
might come from SSP, and if so whether the draft can do anything to 
avoid that
harm, how likely the harm would be, etc.

       Mike
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