On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, wayne wrote:
In
<Pine(_dot_)LNX(_dot_)4(_dot_)44(_dot_)0410011107210(_dot_)684-100000(_at_)sokol(_dot_)elan(_dot_)net>
"william(at)elan.net" <william(_at_)elan(_dot_)net> writes:
On 1 Oct 2004, John Levine wrote:
and (debatably)
doesn't have to survive all of the mangling that might happen to
messages as they pass through mailing lists and the like.
This I STRONGLY SGRONGLY disagree. The system MUST be able to work
within current email infrastructure and not break it. That means
the signature must survive emails and forwarders and all other common
email retransmision systems.
Isn't this kind of a fundemental catch-22?
If you allow someone to send from their Yahoo account to a mailing
list, allow the mailing list to add their garbage onto the end, and
still have the message verified, what is stopping a spammer from
creating a "mailing list" with all 50million "verified opt-in email
accounts" that adds their spam on the end?
If somebody sends signed email to email list, its true that same email can
potentially be reused by somebody else who can add "unsigned" content. But
we should probably recognize that if added text is a lot bigger then
original, then email should not be considered validated or develop
potential in MUAs (more advanced mode perhaps for those users who care)
that can display which part has signature and which does not. Also
potential for reusing such email is small if you include original date
and message id as part of the signature.
If a spammer can send a single email from their throw-away Yahoo
account to their "mailing list" and still have it blesses as coming
from Yahoo, what good is it.
I think you missed the point. If they send email from their yahoo account
account, its going to be valided as having come from that particular yahoo
account, it does not say it really is from yahoo corporate, etc.
If you lock down the signature system tight enough that spammers can't
abuse it, then it will break mailing lists.
I disagree. I think it can be both tight and allow for validation of
content end-end and not just hop-hop (which we can already do with TLS).
--
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
william(_at_)elan(_dot_)net