ietf-dkim
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ietf-dkim] Responsibility vs. Validity

2007-11-28 17:35:48
Jon Callas wrote:

The buck for the "administrative domain" of callas.org lies  
ultimately with me. I run it. I have a number of users, who are all  
members of my family. The way that I run the system, it's possible  
for us to forge messages from each other. Now, the MTA will also put  
in a header line that says who the authenticated sender is, but  
that's in a "Received" line, and isn't going to be signed by DKIM.

My policy is that an authenticated user can "forge" senders. If that  
policy turns out to be unwise, it's my problem. It is the intent of  
DKIM that the administrative domain has the right to be stupid.  
Nonetheless, a DKIM signature means that I accept responsibility for  
a message I (meaning one of my authenticated users) put into the mail  
stream.
I have avoided using the term "forge" because it is imprecise, and
here's an example of it.  I don't think that authenticated users of
callas.org can forge each other's email, because Jon has authorized his
family to use any address in the domain.  If it's authorized, it's not
forgery, is it?

Nevertheless, there will be lots of domains, particularly bigger ones,
that don't authorize anyone in the domain to use any address in the
domain.  Some of these will want to delegate keys to third parties, and
will need third parties with g= in their key records to use the
local-part on i=.  It's entirely up to local domain policy whether they
want to use this feature, however.

-Jim
_______________________________________________
NOTE WELL: This list operates according to 
http://mipassoc.org/dkim/ietf-list-rules.html