I’ve been going back and forth on this a bit.  On one side, I understand that 
we’d like to know when a receiving site does not evaluate both SPF and DKIM.  I 
also am not sure I know of any (sizable?) site which short-circuits evaluation 
after SPF.  Given how much time receivers talk about separation of streams and 
so on, I’d be surprised to see them knowingly discard data which could be used 
for data science-y things.

I receive a report without DKIM data from a specific site.  Today, I can’t know 
if that is a signing problem at the sender, a reporting failure/decision, a 
conscious choice for evaluation, a bug at the receiver, was stripped in 
transit, or something else.  I’m also not sure introducing a new “Not 
Evaluated” state solves/explains why it didn’t show in the reports.

--
Alex Brotman
Sr. Engineer, Anti-Abuse & Messaging Policy
Comcast

From: dmarc <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Douglas Foster
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2022 7:04 AM
To: IETF DMARC WG <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [dmarc-ietf] Aggregate Reporting - "Not Evaluated" result

My thinking has evolved during this discussion:

We should reject Incomplete Results
If an evaluator has decided to do incomplete evaluation, we have to consider 
the possibility that he may or may not collect enough information to enumerate 
what signatures were not evaluated.   So a signature result of "not evaluated" 
does not solve the whole problem, but does cause disaggregation.    A bit field 
indicating "incomplete results" could cover all types of incompleteness, and 
report recipients could decide whether to use the data or not.   But since we 
have aversion to incomplete results, the "must not report" approach both 
encourages complete results and provides upward compatibility for report 
receivers.

Scope
I am skeptical that our request for data about non-aligned signatures can 
justify the cost.   I have seen no defined strategy for integrating non-aligned 
signatures into the message evaluation process, so computing those results are 
pure waste to the evaluator.   Waste has real money costs and real opportunity 
costs.    Given that billions or trillions of messages are transmitted every 
day, the global cost of extra signature evaluations is really quite 
significant.    I am not freaking out about global warming, but it is on my 
radar.  The environmental impact of our decisions, when played out to Internet 
scale, are not trivial.   I would like some convincing that knowledge about 
non-aligned signatures is worth the non-trivial cost that we are asking 
evaluators, and the planet, to absorb.

Doug Foster

On Wed, Oct 19, 2022 at 8:48 PM Neil Anuskiewicz 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:


> On Oct 19, 2022, at 5:42 PM, Neil Anuskiewicz 
> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
> 
>
>> On Oct 19, 2022, at 6:59 AM, Scott Kitterman 
>> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>>>> On October 19, 2022 12:44:16 PM UTC, Dotzero 
>>>> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 11:18 PM Scott Kitterman 
>>> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On October 18, 2022 10:16:44 PM UTC, Neil Anuskiewicz <
>>>> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Oct 2, 2022, at 11:01 AM, Douglas Foster <
>>>> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> In many cases, an evaluator can determine a DMARC PASS result without
>>>> evaluating every available identifier.
>>>>>> If a message has SPF PASS with acceptable alignment, the evaluator has
>>>> no need to evaluate any DKIM signatures to know that the message produces
>>>> DMARC PASS.
>>>>> I think it’s critical to DMARC that receivers do things like evaluate and
>>>> report on DKIM whether or not SPF passes and is alignment. Without this, it
>>>> would make it harder for senders to notice and remediate gaps in their
>>>> authentication. Since there’s not a downside (that I know of), I’d say this
>>>> should be a MUST if at all possible.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What is the interoperability problem that happens if evaluators don't do
>>>> that?
>>>>
>>>> Scott K
>>>>
>>>
>>> Scott, What is the interoperability problem is evaluators didn't provide
>>> reports at all? Reporting isn't a "must" for interoperability but it
>>> certainly helps improve outcomes instead of senders flying blind.
>>
>> I read the email as suggesting a MUST for reporting both SPF and DKIM 
>> results if you report results at all, which would, I think lead to exactly 
>> the situation you're concerned about.  I'm skeptical of any kind of MUST 
>> around reporting since that's generally reserved for things that impact 
>> interoperability.  I do agree it should be encouraged.
>>
>> Mostly, at the moment, I'm trying to understand the proposed change and the 
>> rationale.
>
> I think the reactions were to the tone that that seemed to suggest that the 
> importance of reporting was being downplayed. MUST is too strong and strongly 
> encouraged is sufficient. The standards system relies on people making a good 
> faith effort. To me, Doug’s comments came off as wanting to weaken the 
> language which concerned me.
>
> Reporting is key for DMARC to work as a system so any hint of weakening that 
> language or even could be interpreted as such caught my attention. I think 
> Doug clarified his position as addressing specific cases not a weakening of 
> the reporting language.
>
> DMARC is about the interests of the system but following the standard 
> strengthens the system within which the sender or receiver operates. Even if 
> one wasn’t interested in the health of system in and of itself, reporting 
> benefits the admin as it increases security and reduces broken 
> authentication. A *LOT* of Senders use reporting data as part of the process 
> of fixing their own and third party senders they wish to allow or spoof, 
> discovering errant shadow IT, etc.
>
> Reporting is or core importance for everyone if for no other reason than to 
> avoid headaches. Thanks.

s/allow or spoof/allow to spoof/
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