Subject: Re: clarification on consensus call for compromise

From: AccuSpam <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 08:09:23 +0800

The algorithm has to take that in account else the algorithm is not going to be popular.

There seems to be a big disconnect here between reality.  None of the proposals can specify with 100% certainty what will happen with the published data.  For example, with the record below, what happens when a fowarder does not use SRS or SUBMITTER?

All the algorithms used have to take this fuzziness into account.

>If so, I would agree: I am against wildcard scopes. I would also say that
>I'm for at least one universal/mandatory scope.

This is impossible and/or unrealistic.

For example, what are you going to mandate about the reality of incomplete adoption of a forwarding solution for MAILFROM?

At 02:53 PM 9/10/2004 -0700, you wrote:
>
>There has been quite a bit of discussion here about either removing 
>scopes or allowing some sort of universal or wildcard scope.
>
>I would not support such a concept because it lessens the strength of 
>what a domain is saying by publishing records.  In particular, if a 
>domain were to publish (making up a syntax...):
>
>	example.com. IN A SPF2 "spf2.0/* +mx +a -all"
>
>We have to wonder what this record says.  It authorizes a set of hosts 
>to use the domain "example.com" as part of which identities in mail?  
>All of them?  Including identities that we haven't named a scope for 
>yet?
>
>I certainly wouldn't publish such a record for my domain, as I don't 
>know what I'm making such an assertion about.  While I might be willing 
>to believe that the "+mx" and "+a" directives are going to be 
>reasonable for any such identity (after all, the reference machines I 
>presumably have control of), I can't make such a statement about 
>"-all".  I don't know that there might be some notion of identity, as 
>yet undefined, for which I'd need to include other hosts.
>
>While other site owners might be willing to take such risks and publish 
>such records, the ability to do so lesses the effectiveness for the 
>whole scheme.  If domains are able to make claims like "We didn't know 
>about that identity check when we published "spf2.0/*" - you can't ding 
>our reputation based on that check." or " - you can't reject mail that 
>doesn't pass", it means that the whole scheme is diminished.
>
>In short, when we say "domains authorized the use of identity X by 
>publishing an SPF record" we do so because we are going to hold them 
>accountable if the authorization passes, and reject if it fails.  And 
>for those actions to have any force, the declaration of authorization 
>has to be incontestable.
>
>	- Mark
>
>Mark Lentczner
>http://www.ozonehouse.com/mark/
>[email-masked]

---

From: Danny Angus <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 09:32:55 +0100

Yakov wrote:
>What about the scope idea itself? Do you agree with it?

Yakov,

My own view is that the scope idea looks like a bit of a get out for the WG
because it removes the necessity to specify a single definitive identity
and a single definitive algorithm for identifying it.

Real life tends to weaken this argument by demonstrating time and again
that any definitive identity and its accurate determination already is a
moving target.

"Scope" which implements extensibility, is therfore a reasonable
future-proofing precaution, but we ought to take care that we don't use it
as an excuse for avoiding the difficult issue.

One (or more) initial madatory scope(s) would satisfy my desire to see that
the specification as published be implementable without external refrence,
and more importantly without contact (direct or indirect) between
implementors being required for satisfactory interoperability. Surely this
is the whole point of interoperability RFC's, and something which is lost
if we first have to find out what scopes a recipient checks before we can
send them mail.

Leaving scope as extensible will allow those who follow to spend more time
analysing and defining and evolving the truly sucessful scopes which this
proposal requires in order to be sucessful. In the fullness of time perhaps
one of these scopes could form the basis for the next generation of this
work, by being both mandatory and effective.

d.

Danny Angus
http://james.apache.org

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