John, No. The sentence concerns DKIM2 chain validation, not spam filtering. A spambot that forges List-Id and signs at i=1 gets filtered the same way it always has - reputation, content, behavioral signals, volume patterns. None of those come from the DKIM2 chain.
Your question illustrates the concern precisely. The only way chain absence gives a spambot a “free pass” is if implementations are using chain structure as a spam signal. That is exactly what the sentence is meant to prevent - not because we want to protect spambots, but because if chain absence becomes a spam signal, legitimate first-position signers with clean reputations fail on chain structure alone. The DKIM2 chain authenticates the signing domain. Spam filtering operates on everything else. Those two layers should stay separate. If the working group intends chain absence to function as a spam signal, that is worth stating explicitly. Right now it is not stated, and implementations will fill that silence in different directions. William From: John Levine <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2026 11:39:19 -0600 Subject: [Ietf-dkim] Re: BCP: operator note on header size limits and Message-Instance growth > It appears that William Weiner <[email protected]> said: > >The general principle as you have stated it - that absence of a prior chain > >must not be treated as a negative indicator for an i=1 signature, > >whoever produced it - is the right language and I support seeing it in > >adopted text. > > It sounds like you're saying that if my spambot puts List-Id and the like in > the spam and signs it with i=1 to make it > look like it's reoriginating, it gets a free pass. If that's not what > you're saying, please clarify. > > R's, > John > _______________________________________________ > Ietf-dkim mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > _______________________________________________ Ietf-dkim mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
