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Re: [ietf-dkim] Mailing lists and s/mime & dkim signatures - mua considerations

2010-08-23 22:09:25

On 8/21/2010 6:06 PM, Daniel Black wrote:
 Taking an approach saying we don't care if DKIM survives MLMs
is a step in the opposite direction. This is not a proposal I support.

Not really, since it was known from the start that survival through an MLM is 
highly problematic and the steps towards helping survival were known to be 
quite 
limited.

Requiring survival is a change in DKIM's goals, as well as raising a massive 
barrier to adoption, given the history of a) challenge in adoption for any 
infrastructure sequence, and b) resistance by MLM developers and operators.

In other words, this line of efforts is seeking to raise the requirements for 
DKIM.  Absent compelling and demonstrated functional need, that makes it at 
best 
a distraction and at worst counter-productive for DKIM's main purpose.

DKIM's main purpose is assessment by reputation filtering engines.  The most 
important reputations to assess are the entities that are 'responsible' for 
message.  An MLM creates the message.  That the message might look a lot like 
one sent /to/ it is nice, but it's also confusing.  The original author is not, 
ultimately, responsible for what the MLM chooses to send.


S/MIME already does that, with a suitable pointer.

S/MIME was design to protect body content, not an entire message.


All of this prompts a repeat of an underlying question:  What is the purpose of 
this exercise and how is it justified within the charter?

With respect to MLMs, I thought the focus was on documenting realities and 
passing through MLMs and to explore issues and opportunities better integrate 
MLMs into DKIM.  That's quite different from trying to alter the core DKIM 
capability to support survival through MLMs.  I'm pretty sure that changing 
DKIM 
Core is not within our charter.


As for MUA considerations, anyone making claims about what is needed for 
utility 
in an MUA needs to cite their sources, providing empirical justification, not 
merely mathematical logic for why utility "ought" to be improved.


d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net
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