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Re: [ietf-smtp] [dane] Request DANE ALPS (another attempt to canonicalize local parts)

2016-03-09 14:46:42
[CC +PKIX]

I greatly appreciate the cross posting in the parent, as I didn't realize
there was a large body of work already developed in DANE on interpreting
the email address local-part.

Not really. There have been two drafts in DANE, one for storing PGP keys in the DNS, and one for S/MIME keys, and the authors have consistently ignored advice from the SMTP community that what they are doing is a bad idea and how to minimize the damage.

I would agree that it would be very helpful to create a compatible email
canonicalization or mapping scheme.

As I said a few messages ago, it is not an accident or a mistake that there is no canonical form for e-mail addresses. We understand why some people wish it were otherwise, but the number of ways that MTAs map e-mail addresses is only slightly less than the number of MTAs, and the mappings are constantly changing.

It may be possible to figure out a way to use an SMTP server or maybe a web server connected to an SMTP server as an oracle, to ask do these two addresses deliver to the same place or to ask for a key or a certificate for an address, but even that is iffy.

We can't even say what it means for two addresses to be "the same". For example, on my MTA there about a thousand live addresses that deliver to the same inbox where your message was delivered, but that doesn't mean I want all of them to have the same PGP or S/MIME keys.

R's,
John

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