If this implied solution was working, we would not have a mailing list
problem 10 years running.



On Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 10:41 AM Dotzero <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Nov 23, 2023 at 10:19 AM Douglas Foster <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> The gap between what is being attempted and what is needed is a huge
>> personal disappointment.
>>
>> The DMARC goal should be to block malicious impersonation without
>> blocking wanted messages, where "wanted" is in the eyes of the evaluator
>> and his end user.    That puts the onus on the evaluator.   RFC 7960 said
>> that evaluators need to be aware of problems, but gave no solutions.
>>  DMARCbis replaces the evaluator with a mindless automaton, repeating all
>> the worst mistakes of RFC 7489.
>>
>> This is from a real-world conversation with a product support tech:
>>    Me:  I cannot use your DMARC implementation because it does not have
>> an exception mechanism.
>>    Him:   Why would you need exceptions?
>> I blame his ignorance, and his product's inadequacies, on RFC 7489, which
>> defined no exceptions.
>>
>> RFC 7489 falsely divides the mail stream into four groups:
>>
>>    - Authenticated / Pass,
>>    - Unauthenticated without Prejudice (None),
>>    - Unauthenticated with Prejudice (Quarantine/Reject), and
>>    - No Result.
>>
>> In reality, there are only two possible states:  Authenticated and Not
>> Authenticated.
>>
>>    - The Mailing List problem proves that the distinction between None
>>    and Reject is a fiction.  At best, Fail with Reject justifies a slightly
>>    higher risk weight for environments that depend on weighting.
>>    - "No Result" is an error in RFC 7489.    The PSL and default
>>    alignment rules allowed a result to be calculated on any domain.   An
>>    evaluator cannot excuse a decision to allow malware infestation by saying,
>>    "the domain owner did not give me permission to check for malicious
>>    impersonation."   "No Result" is another way of saying, "I did not do my
>>    job."
>>    - Any unauthenticated message is a potential impersonation.  It is
>>    the evaluator's job to figure out whether malicious impersonation actually
>>    occurred or not.
>>
>> Authentication failure provides a starting point, not an end point.  The
>> risk of malicious impersonation applies to every unauthenticated message.
>>
>> Correct evaluation fixes the mailing list problem and fixes a lot of
>> other false blocks, while blocking the malicious traffic that RFC 7489
>> leaves unmolested.
>>
>> We need a document that is targeted at evaluators, to help them make
>> correct disposition decisions for their organizations.   The current
>> document blames the charter as the reason that it does not even try.
>>
>> Doug Foster
>>
>
> You are absolutely incorrect when you state that there are no exceptions
> provided. "Local policy"  enables an evaluator to implement any
> exception(s) they wish.
>
> Michael Hammer
>
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