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Re: [ietf-dkim] RFC4871bis - whether to drop -- k: Key type

2009-06-07 07:04:22


John Levine wrote:
Another way to look at it is that k= is useless, but it's not harmful,
so it'd be more productive to argue about the warts that are both
useless and harmful.


To be a bit pedantic:

While components of the specification that are openly acknowledged to be 
actively problematic obviously ought to take priority, it's not quite true to 
say that "useless" is not "harmful".

Every piece of a specification carries costs.  If a piece does not also carry 
benefits, then it is a net negative, and that's harmful.

Implementation and debugging are expensive and they are opportunities for bugs. 
  If these costs and risks are not balanced by any discernible (current) 
benefit, then the "harmless" piece adds to the risk of problems with the 
protocol.

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net
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