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[mail-vet-discuss] Degrading DKIM "fail" to "neutral" (was Re: Last Call: ...)

2008-12-02 16:22:00
Jim Fenton wrote:

RFC 4871 sec. 6.1 says, "Verifiers SHOULD ignore any DKIM-Signature
header fields where the signature does not validate."  My concern is
that if the verifier reports "fail", it's not really ignoring the broken
signature.
  

DKIM-6.1's normative SHOULD leaves room to maneuver within an ADMD which 
does have some reason to deviate from that language and thus wishes to 
make a distinction between a failed signature and an unsigned message.  
If a verifier implementing this proposal decides to report a DKIM "fail" 
as "neutral", that distinction is no longer possible in such environments.

A general question: Is it appropriate for this draft to assist directly 
in the enforcement of a normative SHOULD from other drafts?

One response I got to some queries about this issue went as far as 
saying verifiers SHOULD NOT degrade "fail" to "neutral" despite this 
concern, thereby limiting that action only to well-considered local 
policy decisions.
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