Subject: PRA Patent: License for Display in MUAs?

From: "Michael R. Brumm" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 19:41:00 -0600

I'm wondering, since there has been talk about displaying the SenderID PRA
in MUAs, would Microsoft's patent claims and licensing apply to MUAs also? I
imagine that the steps used by an MTA to extract the PRA for evaluation
would be the same as the steps used by an MUA to extract the PRA for
display...

If licensing FOSS MTAs are problematic with SenderID, I'd imagine that FOSS
MUAs would greatly compound the problem.

Michael R. Brumm

---

From: "william(at)elan.net" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 19:37:41 -0700 (PDT)

Microsoft may have misled others that SenderID and PRA algorithm can be 
used by MUAs to verify email (because of their dominance in MUA market on 
Windows PCs, they need something for MUAs). That is not true. SenderID is 
designed to verify email for SMTP servers directly talking to each other, 
it is NOT a good idea to use the same methods after the completion of 
SMTP transmission! Although, if authentication did occur on the SMTP 
level, it is a good idea to be able to inform end-users about that and
to inform them what address was verified.

For more information on why MUAs should not be used, please see the 
following messages posted earlier:
 http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03769.html
 http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03961.html

I also would remind that MARID WG is about authentication methods for MTAs,
this group has not been chartered to produce specification to be used for 
MUA verification of emails. Topics of MUA verification of email are 
appropriate for S/MIME and OpenPGP workgroups. And please feel free 
to reread the charter if you disagree with this statement. See:
 http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/marid-charter.html

-- 
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
[email-masked]

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From: "Michael R. Brumm" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 22:48:45 -0600

William, I am not an idiot. Please re-read the post. I am not talking about
*performing* SenderID in the MUA, I'm talking about *displaying* the
SenderID PRA in the MUA. Viewing the results of an MTA's MARID evaluations
(in the MUA or elsewhere) is pertinent to the MARID charter.

Thanks,
Michael R. Brumm

-----Original Message-----
From: william(at)elan.net [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 08:38 PM
To: Michael R. Brumm
Cc: IETF MARID WG
Subject: Re: PRA Patent: License for Display in MUAs?

--
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
[email-masked]

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 11:36:08 +0100

>MUAs would greatly compound the problem.
Exactly. And some MUAs were displaying PRA information for years.

Alexey
__________________________________________
Isode Limited, http://www.isode.com

IETF standard related pages:
http://www.melnikov.ca/mel/devel/Links.html

Personal Home Page: http://www.melnikov.ca
__________________________________________

---

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 13:05:06 +0200

> Exactly. And some MUAs were displaying PRA information for years.

Explain? And name some names?

(Although now that you say it, the client I'm using right now seems to 
be doing something very much like that...)

Arnt

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From: Matthias Leisi <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 15:38:55 +0200

> Explain? And name some names?

The Notes 5 client shows the Sender: header as "Sent by", but not 821-From.

-- Matthias

-- 
Brain-Log                               http://matthias.leisi.net/