ietf-openproxy
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RE: SMTP filtering use case

2003-02-18 02:54:22

Hi,
see comments inline

abbie

-----Original Message-----
From: The Purple Streak, Hilarie Orman 
[mailto:ho(_at_)alum(_dot_)mit(_dot_)edu] 
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 5:55 PM
To: batuner(_at_)attbi(_dot_)com
Cc: ietf-openproxy(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
Subject: RE: SMTP filtering use case



On Mon, 17 Feb 2003 at 17:17:18 -0500 Oskar Batuner avowed, 
in replying to Alex Rousskov:

 > It looks like the big question here is about control 
over user  > 
preferences. To me, it seems unreasonable to assume that 
all user  > 
preferences are handled at the OPES processor. It is just 
too rigid of  
a model and often very inefficient since the processor 
knows very  > 
little about filtering and the filter (OPES server) may 
need to know a  
lot. If we restrict user preference handling to OPES 
processor, we 
end  > up passing a lot of preference information to the 
OPES server 
just so  > that it can process a transaction.

 I'm afraid we are going too deep with analysis of this specific 
scenario.
 If I understand correctly Martin used preferences just as 
an example of 
 the reason why callout processor may produce multiple responses 
 for a single request. 

Discussions that reveal schisms in the meaning of the 
architecture are very important, whether or not it was the 
intention of the original message.  The lack of specifics to 
date has been difficult for everyone, and I'm sure that there 
are more surprises lurking as we discuss a real protocol for 
real uses.


---------- abbie
agree, this is why we said that the fun begins now.


 There may be any number of reasons for the callout processor to
 produce multi-message response, the protocol just SHOULD 
(MUST?) support 
 multiple responses while preserving transactional integrity.

 We should not (MUST NOT) impose any limitation on what
 information is available to the callout processor (including 
 preferences) and how OPES processor and callout processor assign 
 tasks between themselves while performing a collaborative 
 processing - this is application specifics and should be 
 out of scope for protocol design.

I think it's not as collaborative and loose and all that.  
The OPES processor is the enforcement point for privacy.  
It's designed to be a very fast and fine-grained, 
policy-based, application-layer switch.  If it is not the 
repository for user preferences, then all the policy 
enforcement and authentication requirements get pushed to the 
callout servers.  This leaves the OPES processor with almost 
no function - it might as well be a dumb hardware switch 
operating at layers 4 through 7.

Hilarie


---------- abbie

Hilarie, good points (agree with u here). 

We can not assume that the callout server will be the PEP (or at least the
main one). Otherwise, we get in trobule if the callout server is in
different administration domain, etc... The way I look at it, the OPES
processor may use different callout servers based on different services, so
this means that the OPES processor must be the PEP, the callout server can
be a secondary PEP if chaining is used.

abbie












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