Subject: [MORG] New I-D proposing a "message recall" protocol

From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 09:45:02 -0400

[I posted this yesterday, but the mailing list wasn't accepting posts
from this address.  Posting again; please excuse me if it winds up
showing up twice.]

The subject of "message recall" (the "Damn!  I got the date wrong," or
"I really shouldn't have said that to my boss," feature) has once
again come up -- those who've been around for a while know how often
the subject is raised.

This time, I've spent some time writing up a proposal, got some
feedback from Ned and Nathaniel, and the result is now in an I-D (see
below).  I've taken the liberty of suggesting that it might be
discussed on the morg mailing list (hey, we need some activity here,
right?), in the hope that the WG might decide to adopt it as a WG
document.  It vaguely relates to the idea of organizing messages, if
you stretch the thought a bit.  And I think this idea is one that will
have to be done in a WG, not as an individual submission.

So, this message is a request for three things:

1. To all of you, please review the proposal and comment on it.  (If
you reply to this message, please reply only to the mailing list.)

2. To the chairs, Timo and Randy, I'm asking for a bit of time on the
Stockholm agenda to discuss it, if you can spare the time.

3. To the ADs, Alexey and Lisa, I'm asking for a few minutes on the
Apparea agenda on Monday, to introduce the idea.  How much discussion
you want to have there is up to you... if the Apparea meeting is a
little shy of topics, this can suck up some spare time.  :-)

Thanks, all.

Barry
--
Barry Leiba  ([email-masked])
http://internetmessagingtechnology.org/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: IETF I-D Submission Tool <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 2:37 PM
Subject: New Version Notification for draft-leiba-morg-message-recall-00
To: [email-masked]

A new version of I-D, draft-leiba-morg-message-recall-00.txt has been
successfuly submitted by Barry Leiba and posted to the IETF
repository.

Filename:        draft-leiba-morg-message-recall
Revision:        00
Title:           SMTP Service Extension for Message Recall
Creation_date:   2009-07-06
WG ID:           Independent Submission
Number_of_pages: 17

Abstract:
End users occasionally send email messages that they later want to
recall, perhaps because they sent incorrect information, or had
second thoughts about what they said in the message.  Proprietary
email systems often provide such a recall function.  This document
specifies a standard mechanism for providing it with Internet email.

Note
A revised version of this draft document will be submitted to the RFC
editor as a Proposed Standard for the Internet Community.  Discussion
and suggestions for improvement are requested, and should be sent to
[email-masked].

The IETF Secretariat.

---

From: Timo Sirainen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:35:36 -0400

> you reply to this message, please reply only to the mailing list.)

It should probably talk a bit what it means that a message is "seen by
the recipient". For example:

1. IMAP client is IDLEing and downloads the message headers immediately.
Can it be recalled? (yes?)

2. IMAP client downloads one (or more) MIME parts of the message and
sets \Seen flag. Can it be recalled? (no?)

3. IMAP client downloads one (or more) MIME part of the message but
doesn't change flags. Can it be recalled? (no?)

4. IMAP client downloads message headers and sets \Seen flag. Can it be
recalled? (yes?)

5. POP3 client downloads the message but doesn't delete it. Can it be
recalled? (no?)

Also there's a security/privacy issue that's not mentioned: I don't want
anyone to know when I've read an email they sent. This could be used by
whatever spies to find out when exactly I'm reading my email by looping:
send message, recall message, send the message again, recall again, etc.

> Stockholm agenda to discuss it, if you can spare the time.

Should be ok.

---

From: "Anil SRIVASTAVA [mobile]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:53:53 -0700

~ Anil (tapped out on a iPhone)

> Can it be recalled? (yes?)

Increasingly more and more clients are behaving like (3) below to ease  
searching of message content. Mail.app, Postbox, Xobni plugin for  
Outlook are examples of such clients.

Are we saying here that the server needs to track the client  
interaction for a particular message in order to determine if a  
message can be recalled?

> _______________________________________________
> MORG mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/morg
> Note Well: http://www.ietf.org/maillist.html

---

From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:22:55 -0400

> the recipient".

I was intentionally vague there; perhaps I should say it differently.
My thinking is that it's basically a "policy" decision.  We can
certainly give examples, much as you have, and then either make
recommendations or not.  My inclination is not to make
recommendations, but to just put the examples out there for
implementers to think about.

> send message, recall message, send the message again, recall again, etc.

Excellent; thanks.
Yes, or, less intrusively, do a sequence of HOLD-RELEASE, waiting for
HOLD to say NO.  This definitely needs to be in there.

Barry