Tim,

You should know there is nothing wrong with mailing lists and it is rather
the rest of the email ecosystem which should be changed...

On 3/21/13 7:25 AM, "Tim Draegen" <[email protected]> wrote:

>On Mar 20, 2013, at 11:49 PM, John Levine <[email protected]> wrote:
>> In article 
>><c8869be93cf766409d9086a78338cee938827...@prn-mbx01-5.thefacebook.com>
>>you write:
>>> This is definitely something that will need to be called out in the
>>>DMARC
>>> draft as a privacy consideration when it is published at some point.
>> 
>> I have to say that DMARC is a privacy disaster waiting to blow up.
>> When used on small domains like mine, I can tell a lot about what
>> happened to individual mail messages.  For example, I now have a very
>> good idea how many NANOG subscribers get their mail at Gmail, Hotmail,
>> and Yahoo.
>
>Before we (as a discussion list) jump to conclusions, can we be a bit
>more rigorous in fleshing out what people are concerned about in terms of
>privacy?  It'll make the draft better.
>
>For example, "privacy disaster waiting to blow up" sounds like someone
>needs to jump on the grenade before DMARC explodes and kills everyone's
>privacy.  Since this appears be about DMARC allowing people to count how
>many list subscribers live at each DMARC-enabled provider, what are the
>privacy implications?  Hyperbole aside, is there anything there?
>
>I'll take a stab at fleshing this out:
>       - I no longer have to talk to the list admin and ask for these
>statistics.
>       - I don't have to pay anyone for these numbers.
>       - I can determine how many list lurkers are Out There.
>
>That wasn't very satisfying.  Where is the disaster?  How about when the
>entire world is providing DMARC?  Then, if someone was subscribed to a
>list using a domain like @individual.person, you could discover that
>someone/thing @individua.person was subscribed to the list!  There's some
>cause for minor concern right there.
>
>Are there any work-arounds?  What if DMARC report generators were
>instructed NOT to provide data points if sources are determined to be
>"mailing_list"?  This is a possible solution.  However, this relies on
>the ability of the report generator to accurately identify
>"mailing_list", which even now is weak.  Therefore ineffective and not
>really a solution.
>
>What if mailing lists that are concerned about privacy used their own
>mailing list domain in the 5322.From header field?  Then, the snoopers
>would no longer get the privacy-sensitive data under discussion.  This is
>a possible solution, and viable in that subscribers would be put into a
>position to say "I'd like to use your mailing list, but I can't until you
>stop leaking my subscriber info to anyone who can send email to your
>list".  
>
>OK.  End of exercise.  Murray, I'll be proposing text so mailing list
>operators can understand how their lists might become privacy disasters
>waiting to blow up, and what they can do to mitigate this risk.
>
>=- Tim


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