> Please terminate this sub-thread.  It has many years of wasted history 
> on many mailing lists.
> 
> Really.  The script this thread will follow has been run so many times, 
> the pages are tattered.

Dave, I am well aware of past discussions, but something has changed. We can
certainly agree that server-to-server encryption is not the best way to
provide end-to-end authentication or confidentiality of messages. 

However, if I was running a spying system and if I was in the business of
collecting meta-data, I would love looking at unencrypted SMTP traffic.
Suppose that I tap  a number of big Internet pipe, at exchanges or on the
path to big servers. I can filter out the SMTP traffic with not much effort.
Even if the poor schmucks are using PGP or S-MIME, I will be able to read
the entire set of RFC-822 headers in clear-text. I can use that to create a
database of who sends e-mail to whom, and pretty soon I will have a good
idea of the "social network."

If I was running such a system, I would hate to see SMTP traffic becoming
encrypted. 

In the past, we did not suspect that someone would run such a system. We
were probably naïve. 

-- Christian Huitema


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