-- James A. Donald: > > One way of doing this would be for the MTA to insist > > on a valid signature when talking to certain well > > known MTAs, and then my MUA could whitelist mail > > sent from those well known MTAs
Paul Hoffman wrote: > Yes, if you are willing to throw out messages whose > signatures are broken during transit. Signatures should not be broken when transmitted directly from the signing MTA to the receiving MTA. If they are, then there is a bug in the signing or the receiving MTA, in which case the offending party has the ability and incentive to fix the bug. Signatures are likely to be broken when the signature is being checked by the MUA, because an MTA that knows nothing about signatures will probably break them, but an MTA that knows to check signatures should know not to break them. James A. Donald: > > In short, I am not able to get any advantage out of > > using this protocol, which means that there is no > > advantage in sending me signed mail. Paul Hoffman wrote: > And there is no disadvantage either. There is > advantages for sending signed mail to users who have a > different threat model than you have, I don't think anyone is a different position to me. DKIM is usable in principle, but I am not able to benefit from it in practice. If I am not able to benefit from it in practice, who is? DKIM would be a good idea if done right. It does not, in fact, seem to be working at present. Part of the problem is that part of the whitelisting task has to be done on the MTA, and part on the MUA, and no one has made any provision for keeping them in sync. Seems to me, that DKIM, as implemented, implements the high tech part of the solution, but not the actual nuts and bolts details of the solution. As with so many specifications, the DKIM spec is both overspecified and underspecified - too much fluff and bullshit, but missing essentials. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG xI3XYSEBPo53gqyefixu7gq7WbsD5RRhDxMekg3p 4xjdOGVtm+v4uCubvbccar454roc1aGW3/J1OXrQp --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]