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Re: marid-submitter-02: Recipient's point of view

2004-08-05 10:28:18

On Thu, Aug 05, 2004 at 10:05:54AM -0700, Hadmut Danisch wrote:
| 
| MAIL FROM: <clerk(_at_)yourbank(_dot_)com>  
SUBMITTER=criminal(_at_)superphishing(_dot_)any
| 
| But how could the human reading the message tell that it came from 
| superphishing.any and not from the bank? Today's MUAs are not ready
| for this extensions and I do not see how the SUBMITTER value would
| find it's way to the human reader.

You are correct that MUAs will need to change.

The SUBMITTER draft assumes familiarity with the core/PRA
document.  Section 7.5 of that document reads:

  7.5  MUA Implementers

     When displaying a received message, an MUA SHOULD display the
     purported responsible address as defined by this document whenever
     that address differs from the RFC 2822 From address.  This display
     SHOULD be in addition to the RFC 2822 From address.

     When a received message contains multiple headers that might be used
     for the purported responsible address determination, an MUA should
     consider displaying all of them. That is, if a message contains
     several Resent-From's, a Sender and a From, an MUA should consider
     displaying all of them.

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-marid-core-02.txt

I think we all agree that the above argument as an
antiphishing device is weaker than next-generation
cryptographic solutions.

The rationale was this: preferring the SUBMITTER value over
the MAIL FROM value was seen as making life easier for
forwarders.  Requiring a PASS on SUBMITTER was seen as
making it possible to quickly attach reputation to bad
spammers.  (In other words, a reputation system would be
expected to quickly list superphishing.any.  This
expectation is justified by the fact that DNSBLs seem to
respond quickly, and RHSBLs should be able to respond just
as quickly.)

The common case is expected for SUBMITTER to not be present
in most spam, and so the check would operate against MAIL
FROM.

This reasoning is justified by:

4.1 Setting the SUBMITTER Parameter Value

   SMTP clients that support the Responsible Submitter
   extension MUST include the SUMBITTER parameter on all messages where
   the purported responsible address, as defined in section 4 of
   [SENDER-ID] differs from the MAIL FROM address.  This includes
   messages where the MAIL FROM address is empty or "<>".

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-marid-submitter-02.txt

I understand that to mean that the sending MTA has reduced
  MAIL FROM:<K> SUBMITTER=<K>
to
  MAIL FROM:<K>
and therefore a SPF check on K before DATA is sufficient.

The next sentence in the draft says:

   SMTP clients SHOULD include the SUBMITTER parameter on
   messages where the purported responsible address is the
   same as the MAIL FROM address.

I move to rephrase that as:

   SMTP clients MAY include the SUBMITTER parameter on
   messages where the purported responsible address is the
   same as the MAIL FROM address.


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