Subject: Re: [Asrg] seeking comments on new RMX article

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 10:44:31 -0600 (MDT)

> From: David Maxwell <[email-masked]>

> ...
> No, that is not a correct statement.
>
> The new limitation is that mail with any given sender domain name may
> not be blindly accepted by the destination MTA, if it comes from other
> than an authorized source MTA. 
>
> Mail can still be sent from any computer on the Internet. It's done by
> authenticating to your home MTA, ...

No, that's also incorrect.  A more correct version is that it seems
the RMX notion creates a new requirement for a "home sending MTA."
That new requirement conflicts with the business models of many ISPs
and the preferences of many users.

Whether that new requirement is a good idea (I doubt it) is a separate
issue.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

] From: "Eric D. Williams" <[email-masked]>

] > I think IDENT is in sendmail because it was supposed to be effective
] > against spam.  It was not, and I think one major reason is that it
] > never reached the critical threshold.
]
] Side note: That is not the origin of IDENT protocol.  IDENT had nothing to do 
] with 'spam'.  It is a completely different beast with a completely different 
] and more esoteric origin.

That was originally true, except for the "esoteric" bit.  However, if
the origins of IDENT were a relevant objection, then it would outlaw
RMX because DNS was not invented to deal with spam.

] > Besides, IDENT for mail seems very similar to RMX.  How would
] > checking IDENT values for incoming mail differ from checking RMX bits,
] > other than in trivial matters like using port 53 instead of 113?
]
] Huh?  IDENT is not used for that type of purpose and should not be used to 
] authorize or authenticate any activity on Internet.

Please justify that claim.  I think it is entirely wrong.  IDENT was
invented precisely to add accountability for bad actors; never mind
that I and many others argued from the start that it was a waste of
effort and bandwidth.  That spam was not one of the original bad acts
is also irrelevant. 

Consider http://www.sendmail.org/~ca/email/doc/op-sh-2.html#sh-2.9
which starts:

}  Sendmail supports the IDENT protocol as defined in RFC 1413. Although
}  this enhances identification of the author of an email message ...

That the rest of that text suggests that some of the the people
responsible for sendmail think as little of that as I think of RMX
seems like yet another irrelevancy.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]
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---

From: Claus Assmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 10:22:48 -0700

> seems like yet another irrelevancy.

ident has gained some usefulness again: it can be used to block
squids and CacheFlowServer (misconfigured open proxies).

RMX is different (see Hadmut's response to Dave's comparison
of RMX and ident).