Subject: Re: [EAI] I-D Action: draft-ietf-eai-rfc5336bis-08.txt

From: "Jiankang YAO" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:03:42 +0800

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 9:12 AM
Subject: Re: [EAI] I-D Action: draft-ietf-eai-rfc5336bis-08.txt

> > Filename        : draft-ietf-eai-rfc5336bis-08.txt
> 
> I hope someone can point me at archived messages that resolve this,
>

I try to dig the archived messags, and find the following links:

Frank Ellermann had the similar comments in 2008:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ima/current/msg02417.html

Charles Lindsey had the related comments too:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ima/current/msg02558.html

Harald Alvestrand had recorded the "related" comments as 
"
This message has been recorded as a comment on closed issue #1485.
"
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ima/current/msg02188.html

Jiankang Yao

>
> but what's the reason that section 3.2 says that you need to have
> a UTF8SMTPbis session to pass a message/global as a MIME part?  I
> understand why it'd be a problem if sent as 8bit, but if it's
> QP or base64, what's the difference between that and any random
> application/x.somethingyouneverheardof that people send all the time?
> 
> R's,
> John
> _______________________________________________
> IMA mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ima

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 9 Mar 2011 20:55:46 -0500

>> I hope someone can point me at archived messages that resolve this,

I looked at archived messages, and now I'm more confused than ever.

The draft of 5335bis relaxes the encoding rule, so that a message/global
can be encoded using base64 or quoted-printable for a 7-bit path.

But 5336bis says that you can only send a message/global if the EAI flag 
is set, in which case you know you have 8bitmime, and the encoding isn't 
needed.

Either one makes sense in isolation, but together they're just wrong.  At 
this point I don't have a strong preference for which one to change, but 
we better change one of them.

Or maybe I should read this sentence on page 7 of 5336bis creatively:

    If the UTF8SMTPbis SMTP extension is not offered by the SMTP server,
    the EAI-aware SMTP client MUST NOT transmit an internationalized
    email address and MUST NOT transmit a mail message containing
    internationalized mail headers as described in [RFC5335bis] at any
    level within its MIME structure [RFC2045] and [RFC2047].

Well, gosh, if the MIME part is base64 or q-p encoded, there's no 
internationalized mail headers, there's just some strings of ASCII 
characters which someone might at some later time decode but that's none 
of our business.  Hence, you can send a 7bit encoded message/global 
whether or not the EAI flag is set.

If you think this interpretation is silly (which I wouldn't deny), please 
also say why it's sillier than the alternatives.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:13:53 -0000

> can be encoded using base64 or quoted-printable for a 7-bit path.

I think that may be a relic of the days when we were specifying a  
downgrade mechanism which wojld have dealt with such a message/global in  
that way.
> is set, in which case you know you have 8bitmime, and the encoding isn't  

Indeed, but if some adventurous server wants to attempt a downgrade (I  
don't think we have forbidden that) then the QP or Base64 would be needed,  
and since it would work there is no reason to forbid it.

-- 
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