Hector,

Here are my interpretations.  Everyone, please bear in mind that these
are just that and others are free to disagree.  I'm not interested in
getting into a debate about this.

It's not clear to me that this is really a standardization discussion at
this point, so perhaps we should take discussions of this sort to
another list such as [email protected].

Comments inline...

hector wrote:
> Congratulations on getting this published.  Hopefully, it will taken
> serious by many domains to help provide a reasonable return on DKIM
> processing. In lieu of a standardized (and public) reputation system,
> network, ADSP can give some value.
>
> I have a few questions seeking clarification, confirmation mostly,
> because if I'm going to begin to implement DKIM with an ADSP focus for
> our customers, we will need to be able translate the information in
> the spec into easy to understand documented and online "Help" for
> customers.
>
> 1) With the policies:
>
>    dkim=all vs dkim=discardable
>
> In layman terms, one is actionable (discardable) and one is not (all).
> One is an "Error" resulting in a reject, one is a "Warning" not
> resulting in a reject, in both cases, can be logged/recorded?  Our GUI
> setup may show it like so for example:
>
>   Author Domain: domain.example
>
>   DKIM Signing Policy:
>
>   (o) unknown     - your mail may be signed
>
>   (_) all         - Your mail are always sign, however
>                     verifiers SHOULD NOT reject invalid signatures.
>
>   (_) discardable - Your mail are always sign, and
>                     verifiers MUST reject invalid signatures.
>
>   [ PUBLISH ] [CANCEL ]
>
> Is that the basic translation and fair way to put it?

I disagree that "all" is not actionable.  There are several things the
verifier/assessor can do.  (1) Apply more stringent content checking
(perhaps changing the threshold values or something).  (2) If the GUI is
under the control of the assessor (such as a webmail client), display a
visual warning.  If not, do something like add [dkim unverified] to the
subject line.  Some of you may have seen that if I responded hastily to
a message without cleaning that up, because I have been trying that out
for quite some time now.

>
> 2) DKIM=UNKNOWN
>
> Is there any actionable logic for optional signing?
>
> I mean, you may not always sign, but if you do, it must not be invalid?
>
> I just want to make sure in our help/doc to indicate whether
> publishing with unknown is the same as no ADSP record. One is
> explicit, the other is implicit.  I may not always sign, but if I do,
> take it serious.  Having no records could be viewed you don't care
> either way.
>
> I guess as it seems to be now, it would be a "Warning" but still
> acceptable (no rejection on this basis).  But see the tail end of 3.

I would advise against treating a signature that is invalid any
differently from a signature that isn't present.  There are intermediate
agents that might break the signature, and we don't want to give the
impression that applying a signature might increase the risk of
non-delivery.  Furthermore, dkim=unknown has the same meaning as the
lack of an ADSP record.

>
> 3) Finally 3rd party signatures.
>
> Please believe me I don't wish to rehash this. It was the one thing
> that I really felt will help domains.  Not so much in defining the
> difficult task for valid use cases for the inclusion of 3rd signature
> policies, but rather the exclusion of 3rd parties.  For example,
> appendix B.4 says:
>
> B.4.  Third-Party Senders
>
>    Another common use case is for a third party to enter into an
>    agreement whereby that third party will send bulk or other mail on
>    behalf of a designated Author or Author Domain, using that domain
>    in the [RFC5322] From: or other headers.  Due to the many and
>    varied complexities of such agreements, third-party signing is not
>    addressed in this specification.
>
> Ok, I accept this, we had hard time defining 3rd party situations. But
> this is not the same as the one hard logical conclusion a domain
> may have:  He doesn't do 3rd party signatures nor expect it.
>
> So it seems me that the explicit declaration of a ADSP policy, the
> only options provided to prevent it are the explicit DKIM=ALL and
> DKIM=DISCARDABLE declarations.
>
> However, does the explicit DKIM=UNKNOWN declaration also imply
> exclusive Author Domain Signing?  An explicit DKIM=UNKNOWN should
> suggest ADSP operations only, even if the signature is optional.
>
> Is that a correct or incorrect consideration?

dkim=unknown doesn't imply that there is any Author Domain Signing going
on, and it is always (regardless of the ADSP value) OK for an
intermediary to apply a DKIM signature if it's willing to take
responsibility.  So ADSP is completely silent on the presence or absence
of third-party signatures.

Again, dkim=unknown has exactly the same semantics as the lack of an
ADSP record.  A published ADSP record will normally have a longer
time-to-live than the negative caching of the lack of one, so publishing
a record will cut down on DNS traffic.

My answer is that this is an incorrect consideration.

Hope this helps.

-Jim

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