(disregard previous, I did miss this message Steve... I have the context now... 
a few comments below)

On May 27, 2010, at 5:22 PM, Steve Atkins wrote:

> 
> On May 27, 2010, at 12:46 PM, Brett McDowell wrote:
> 
>> On May 26, 2010, at 11:28 PM, Steve Atkins wrote:
>> 
>>> I'm pretty sure that ADSP as-is is a bad tool to solve any particular 
>>> problem.
>>> But given it's not being proposed to solve any concrete problem, it's
>>> hard to discuss whether there's a better solution. 
>>> 
>> 
>> Are you deliberately ignoring the data I provided... at your request for 
>> data?
> 
> Not at all. It's interesting, but it's only marginally related to ADSP.
> 
> You're taking data based on a private relationship at a small number of
> consumer ISPs, for a very specific subset of mail and using that as
> data to directly support a protocol based on self-publication by a large
> number of different parties that would be acted upon by more than
> just a couple of consumer freemail providers. (If that weren't the
> case, there'd be no point in standardising a self-publication approach
> such as ADSP).
> 
> Additionally, the data you've provided that I've seen isn't that useful
> as it only provides one of the four useful numbers in the legitimate vs
> phish, rejected by ADSP vs not rejected matrix.
> 
> To give you a bit more idea of what I mean by that, I've pulled some
> data out of my mailbox, looking at emails that were both legitimate paypal
> mail, and which were clear phish emails targeting paypal. For each of
> those I worked out whether it would have been accepted or rejected
> based solely on ADSP dkim=discardable if they'd been signed when sent.
> 
> I'll write up the methodology in a little more detail, but out of my sample
> the initial data is:
> 
> Legitimate email from paypal:
> 
>     72% rejected by ADSP
>     28% not rejected
> 
> Phishing emails using "paypal" in the From line:
> 
>     39% rejected by ADSP
>     61% rejected.
> 
> This is based on mail to my mailbox, but other than that it's a pretty
> fair sample, if anything it's fairly heavily skewed towards phish emails
> that would be rejected by ADSP (as it's based on emails with the string
> paypal in the From: line, which includes all phish mail that would be 
> rejected,
> but excludes quite a lot of phish mail that wouldn't be).
> 
> It's a small sample, but that means I've been able to identify and confirm
> manually the status of each email. (It does ignore the fact that Paypal
> acquires an awful lot of lookalike domains, partly because that's something
> it's hard to analyze after the fact but mostly because "buy every domain in
> every TLD that has my company name in it" is not a behaviour that scales
> at all.)
> 
> It's also based on sender behaviour before there's significant actual
> filtering via ADSP. I would expect less mail, both legitimate and 
> illegitimate,
> to be rejected by ADSP as time went on.
> 
> That's real data, not theory, for the current state of the paypal related
> mailstream as I personally see it. I think I can extrapolate from there
> to what'll happen to that specific mail stream were ADSP to be widely
> adopted, but that'd be speculation.


I look forward to learning more about your methodology.  Your numbers don't 
match ours so there may be something we could learn from your analysis.

> 
>> 
>>> The original argument was that it would help deal with phishing, but
>>> now even the strongest proponents are happy to explain that it will do
>>> absolutely nothing to help with phishing
>> 
>> I'm sorry, I'm not only arguing that it absolutely DOES help with phishing, 
>> I've provided real data (vs. theory).
>> 
>> Steve, I saw you give a presentation in February and I was very impressed by 
>> both your technical knowledge and your overall common sense.  I consider you 
>> both intelligent and wise.  But I cannot explain the position you've taken 
>> on the ADSP issue on this mail list.  
> 
> I think DKIM is a Good Thing that should be widely deployed. ADSP is
> broken in many respects, and because it's tied to DKIMs mindshare
> that brokenness deters DKIM adoption. So I believe that ADSP needs
> to be fixed or it needs to be allowed to die.

I vote for "fix".

> 
>> 
>> What other solutions on top of DKIM would you like to see the Internet adopt 
>> instead of ADSP... something open, interoperable, and royalty-free I hope!
> 
> I can think of several, and I'd be more than happy to sit down and discuss
> them at some point over a beer, but I'm hearing enough grumbling from
> the chairs about what's on topic and what isn't already[1].

> 
> Cheers,
>  Steve
> 
> [1] Domain whitelists
> operated by FDIC, D&B etc, for real businesses in a particular niche, or
> certificates based on vetting, a-la the green bar are two obvious ones,
> though. The green bar and extended verification certs is what PayPal
> is really relying on to avoid phishing right now, AFAICT. It's simple
> and effective and easy for consumers to understand.

Yes, wee support EV Certs too... defense in depth. 

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