tldr; what ARC tries to address is already correctly handled by
DKIM/SPF/DMARC if used as designed.

IMHO ARC seems to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

The message passes through your network and you make changes to it in the
process ? Sign it with DKIM on your edge/"last hop" server, as it should
be. After all the message should be DKIM signed once is finished and ready
to send, not while it is being written.

I confess I didn't read the whole details of the RFC but one thing stroke
me: you validate an "ARC sealer" using a DKIM-like mechanism (
public/private key) right ?
If so... what's the difference for a pure DKIM signature ? Why add another
layer of complexity if that problem was already addressed by another
mechanism ( DKIM ) ?

And no, SPF is no excuse: that's what "+include:" an "+redirect:", etc,
exist for.
I can't seem to find any valid reason for a permanent SPF failure: if a
server/subnet/whatever may be the origin of mail from a domain, add that
server/subnet/whatever to the SPF record. Not that difficult, I think.
And redirects ? That's what SRS is for.

I may (and that's a real possibility ) be overlooking something obvious
about all this and if so please elucidate me, but for now I'm only seeing
ARC as a problem we all will have to address, that will be the cause of
issues and customer calls/tickets ... and all to solve a problem that
simply does not exist.

Regards,


On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 8:20 AM Cyril - ImprovMX via mailop <
[email protected]> wrote:

> ARC, from my understanding, can not be accepted as a viable solution for
> accepting email that were modified (and had their SPF/DKIM broken).
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understood, using ARC, I can
> craft an email that came from [email protected] - of course
> ignoring all the SPF/DKIM that @whitehouse.org has implemented, add an
> ARC signature on top of that saying that "yes, the email originally came
> from whitehouse.org and SPF/DKIM was not broken at the time", sign this
> with an ARC-Signature from my h4ck3r domain and all the services that have
> implemented ARC should accept my email because, hey ! I signed it, you can
> trust me!
>
> Obviously, this can't be it. One solution to this would be to set up a
> whitelist of services that you can rely on when you receive an ARC-Signed
> email, but this creates a two-way Internet and I prefer mine neutral, or at
> least optimistic rather than favoring (yet again) the big player in
> opposition to the new one coming to town and being honest.
>
> But maybe I missed something on the way ARC works and it does really
> ensure that the one signing the received email (and further modifying it,
> thus breaking the SPF or DKIM) can be effectively trusted without a prior
> white listing?
>
> Le jeu. 16 juin 2022 à 20:11, Al Iverson via mailop <[email protected]> a
> écrit :
>
>> Jeff, this is really interesting. Thanks for sharing. This answers a
>> lingering question for me as far as what practical applications there can
>> be for ARC in a context other than a mailing list.
>>
>> Am I getting this right -- the way this would work is that another email
>> platform would sign/"seal" a current state of the message authentication
>> into the ARC header and then Microsoft, if it trusts that ARC signer, reads
>> the ARC results to pass messages that would have perhaps otherwise failed
>> authentication checks due to forwarding etc. past that point?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Al Iverson
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2022 at 10:05 AM Jeff Dellapina via mailop <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> As email passes thru our network, we make changes to the message. We may
>>> add items to the header/footer or change links into “protected mode”.
>>> Doing so breaks Authentication.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Authenticated Received Chain (ARC). ARC helps preserve authentication
>>> results *across* intermediaries.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Learn more about ARC and how we make it work here:
>>>
>>> Improving “Defense in Depth” with Trusted ARC Sealers for Microsoft
>>> Defender for Office 365 - Microsoft Tech Community
>>> <https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-defender-for-office/improving-defense-in-depth-with-trusted-arc-sealers-for/ba-p/3440707>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> We have used ARC for a while, but this is the first time we rolled it
>>> out to our 0365 customers.  That said… there are some email filtering
>>> vendors that are not using ARC which breaks authentication. In those cases,
>>> we are forced to bulk or reject legitimate email sometimes from our own
>>> customers who use email filtering services.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>>  Jeff Dellapina
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Sr. Email Delivery Manager
>>>
>>> SAGE  Team
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> mailop mailing list
>>> [email protected]
>>> https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Al Iverson / Deliverability blogging at www.spamresource.com
>> Subscribe to the weekly newsletter at wombatmail.com/sr.cgi
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Paulo Azevedo
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