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Re: [ietf-dkim] ISSUE: SSP-02: Discardable inappropriately specifies possible verifier action

2008-02-12 11:27:00
Douglas Otis wrote:

On Feb 11, 2008, at 11:33 PM, Hector Santos wrote:

Doug,

The way I read SSP-02 is that MTA verifiers are no longer in the picture but rather MUAs and it is MUAs that would do the DISCARDING:

  discardable  All mail from the domain is signed with an Author
    Signature.  Furthermore, if a message arrives without a valid
    Author Signature due to modification in transit, submission via
    a path without access to a signing key, or other reason, the
    domain encourages the recipient(s) to discard it.

Apple's dictionary- recipient:
a person or thing that receives or is awarded something

In the SMTP "dictionary", recipients are RCPT-TO forwarding paths A.K.A end users.

Per the SSP-02 abstract:

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) defines a domain-level
authentication framework for email using public-key cryptography and
key server technology to permit verification of the source and
contents of messages by either Mail Transport Agents (MTAs) or Mail
User Agents (MUAs).  The primary DKIM protocol is described in
This document describes the records that authors' domains can use to
advertise their practices regarding signing their outgoing mail, and
how other hosts can access, parse and interpret those records.

Clearly SSP is intended for use by both MUAs and MTAs.  However,
discarding is _not_ appropriate at the MTA in many cases.  Message
handling should be defined by a follow-on document.  One such
document might be written for use at the MTA, and another at the
MUA.

Clearly, this is what happens when you have 2+ years of work commandeered in less than 2 weeks (admittedly a thing of beauty in the art of Mastering Chaos) with essentially a Find/Replace string stripped down document (IMO borderline unethical) where you end up with conflictive semantics all over the place.

Clearly, the attempt was to remove all MTA verifiers logic for filtering DKIM mail with the only explicit semantics provided for a MUA entity.

But you also need to ask, why even have an SSP or ASP "skeleton" document? We already have the model of ideas in RFC 4871 and RFC 5016.

At this point, I would vote for a total SSP/ASP abandonment rather than risk the email world to such questionable late minute changes without thinking much about the consequences.

--
Sincerely

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

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