Re: Why are we here? What are our goals?

On Jan 30, 2004, at 8:02 AM, Bonatti, Chris wrote:

> Okay, so long as we're throwing ideas out, it always seemed to me
> that we should have a multicast-friendly transport option for
> push-mode messaging.
I'm not sure I'd go multicast, but some kind of "transfer of 
processing" isn't a bad idea, optionally.
I'm thinking in terms of some kind of architecture that allows for 
optional enhancements that can be advertised by a receiving server, and 
if they exist, sending servers could take advantage of it. There'd be a 
core set of required features, a configurable set of standard 
extensions, and some kind of plug-in capability for specialty work and 
future new stuff. if that sounds a lot like configuring apache, it's 
purely coincidental, but it's a good model.
One of those standard-but-optional modules could be a way to allow a 
site to accept "mail merged" e-mail. The Mailman group is discussing 
the tradeoffs of personalization now; if you have a mailing list that 
you want to individualize for each user, now, you have to send one 
email for each user, losing any batching capability. So if a site 
wanted to, they could enable a module that allows a MLM to send a 
template and a set of updates in a single packet, and "explode" it into 
individual emails on the other side. Since you're making a resource 
tradeoff here (CPU for network, he says, oversimplifying it for 
simplicity's sake), it should be up to the receiving site whether to 
accept that tradeoff or not.
> I also like the notion of anonymity as a SECURITY service.

I argued against this earlier, but if you look at the "plug in" setup 
above, I wouldn't argue against it being an optional service, but 
what's the fallback if a receiving site refused to accept anonymous 
mail?
I really think privacy/anonymity is better served at a higher level, by 
a service that lives on a trusted host and acts as a trusted 
go-between. Trying to implement that in the transport layer on a global 
basis isn't feasible; instead, create a way for a few trustable sources 
to be validated as go-between that sites can choose to accept or not, 
similar to the current remailers.
I am very wary of anyone thinking they can build a distributed system 
of trusts in an environment where those we know we can't trust are full 
partners in the network and have full access to the data in it. I see 
that as similar to sending a copy of my house key to everyone in the 
country, and then thinking I'd somehow know whether they're friend or 
foe when they open the door. I just don't think that's feasible. 
Instead, I prefer to leave the door locked, hand keys only to those I 
trust, and ask the rest to use the doorbell.