>>>>> "TF" == Tony Finch <[email protected]> writes:

TF> James Cloos <[email protected]> wrote:
>> A point of discussion is what, if anything, the receiving MTA should do
>> dane-wise with and cert offered by the sending MTA.

TF> I think this might be interesting to pursue but it could be a deep rat
TF> hole. I prefer to get server authentication complete first.

Separate draft, then?

TF> I believe it would not be feasible to tie the sending host identity to the
TF> sending mail domain. That would repeat the error made by SPF. So the only
TF> benefit we can get is authenticating the sending host; some other
TF> mechanism (i.e. DKIM) is necessary for higher-level identities.

+100.  I only thought of it as a link in the chain.  *If* all of the
Received come with confirmed cert comments then *maybe* the path is
a bit more trustworthy.  Maybe even two bits. :)

TF> What benefit would client authentication give you? At the moment we
TF> usually assume that bidirectional TCP is good enough for us to believe the
TF> client IP address; this is evidently a bit shaky given the lack of routing
TF> security, but even if we had secure routing we could still be open to
TF> spoofing attacks from sufficiently well-placed on-path attackers.

Just a link in a chain, akin to a path through a (weak) web of trust.

TF> For intra-domain mail, client authentication is useful for gaining
TF> permission to relay arbitrary mail. It's perfectly sensible to use client
TF> certificates for this, probably validated using a private CA. If DANE
TF> takes off it might be preferable to use the DNS instead.

Again, well stated.

TF> For inter-domain mail the client IP address is looked up in reputation
TF> services and used for tracing and logging. You might care about making
TF> this harder to spoof, but it's fairly marginal I think.

Indeed.  Hense just a bit or so more trustworthy.  But in some cases maybe
that bit is a back-reinforcing bit?

My primary MX shows about 1/8 of my recent mail came from MXs which
presented a cert signed by something in my dist's root pool, and about
3/8 were anonymous tls, leaving about 1/2 clear text.  FWIW.

-JimC
-- 
James Cloos <[email protected]>         OpenPGP: 1024D/ED7DAEA6
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