ietf-mxcomp
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Re: Benefits/costs of authorizing different identities

2004-04-07 08:20:11

JK> Unfortunately, you actually said that the charter for the group was
on
JK> "peer validation" whereas in fact the group is chartered to develop
JK> mechanism which may be used for this purpose.

"Primary use case" means that if it can't achieve that use, we have
not satisfied the charter.  That's very different from saying "may".


No Dave, that's what "may be used" means: ability, competency, for such
use.
 



Breaking legitimate functionality of a system that has been in use for
30 years and is currently relied on by 1 billion people obligates
those doing the breaking to be very clear and careful about defining
and defending the breakage.  That is not happening about this topic.


Well sure, that functionality is important to many users, I completely
agree with you. I know children's scissors have blunt ends, but that
doesn't mean that all scissors must have. We assume that grown-ups are
capable of making sensible judgements about appropriate use. Sometimes,
sadly, we're wrong.


More generally, SMTP is a point-to-point protocol.  Any attempt to
assign a level of trustworthiness to an MTA requires a chain-of-trust
model back to the originator.
JK> I don't really want to get involved in a *trust* argument, but this
is
JK> patently untrue. This end might be achieved out-of-band.

This entire effort is about development of a trust mechanism, so it
will be rather crippling to avoid discussing the topic. "This end
might be achieved out-of-band."


No, I was only challenging your assertion that a "chain of trust" is the
*only* possible model.
 
Also, I do not understand what you mean by


 
JK> I do not believe that the group should
JK> "focus" on this to the exclusion of anything else.

This goes into the issue I raised about the dangers of not focusing.


No. I meant that focussing on HELO only, to the exclusion of anything else,
would be bad. I gather that this isn't your position (any longer)?

Regards,
JK