ietf-dkim
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Re: [ietf-dkim] Re: Re: from'less 2822 messages

2008-01-28 15:30:00
Frank Ellermann wrote:

What I had in mind was
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.dkim/9276>

| The fact is, in most x822/non-x822 gateway systems, it is
| incompatible as MOST online electronic mail systems has
| only a 1 single author concept.  Anyone who say there were
| wrong for PRE-EXISTING as such for many years is not | correct.

Looking again it it is quite possible that I simply didn't
get what you were trying to say.

The fact that there are systems, you might wish to label them as legacy systems, but I will venture they are still active and currently supported systems, that don't expect to deal or work or make sure it is consistent with a multiple From: address concept.

To presume that this is a supported concept across the board from MTA, to MUAs, across multiple mail networks, etc, etc, is simply not the reality.

For a quick example, right now, using the Thunderbird MUA, it does not allow me to create a multiple from reply or new message.

From a presentation standard, the TBird MUA presents only the 1st address.

I have not checked the Outlook MUA, but it will present all the From: lines as one.

But overall, I will not be surprise to see incompatibility because historically, in the annals of electronic mail systems, not just x822, it is an odd-ball consideration. It is a special case for mail writing software to support this concept.

You can not expect this to survive across the board.

For our hosting system, which supports both x822 and raw proprietary transformation formats, maybe operations use the transformation as a legacy interface and as well as security filter (no HTMLs). I can tell you multiple From: addresses will not survive.

For legacy networking concepts, which we still have many customers using, QWK systems do not support it and FIDONET systems do not support it. So the concept is a non-priority for these customers.

All our presentation devices, Online HTML, Off-loaded GUI, Online Console Text, etc, do not expect Multiple From: lines.

Are we alone?  I doubt it.

Now, at the SMTP level, it would be something we need to take account for DKIM/SSP for verification purposes. But thats it. Users who are concern will 100% RFC x822/MIME support, will turn on their "Preserve Mime" user option and our system will store the message as it, no transformation. So its not a big deal, and I doubt the multiple From: potential will ever be a big deal to anyone because are extremely high, this will reflect malicious mail more so than legitimate mail, and if its legitimate then it will be correctly DKIM signed.

--
Sincerely

Hector Santos, CTO
http://www.santronics.com
http://santronics.blogspot.com

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