Subject: Re: [Asrg] How to defeat spam that uses encryption?

From: Nathaniel Borenstein <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2003 12:40:04 -0400

HBP> Base64 exists for one reason alone - because stupid MTAs had a
HBP> habit of molesting the messages they were transmitting.

DC> Base64 was added to permit sending random 8-bit data
DC> within a 7-bit stream.

DC> There was no intent to try to trick intermediaries.

In fact, you can go a step further and point out that if every SMTP 
server understood the ESMTP binary option (RFC 3030) then base64 in 
SMTP transmission could be completely eliminated from the face of the 
earth.  It was always intended as a transitional strategy, but it has 
worked so well that there has been remarkably little incentive to make 
it disappear.  (Not enough people care about optimizing bandwidth in a 
world where telcos are *still* at 50% overcapacity!)

I think Dave's real problem was with the term "molest" -- if a 7-bit 
protocol is given 8-bit data, it can't do *anything* wrong or malicious 
-- having been fed illegal data, its behavior is completely 
unspecified.  You're lucky it doesn't release poison gas into your 
server room.  :-)  -- Nathaniel

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From: "Tom Thomson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 15:36:14 +0100

> server room.  :-)  -- Nathaniel

But do you see it as a problem that IETF continues to produce documents
which are designed for a world fillerd with 7-bit channels? Wouldn't it be
nice if, for examkple, the main email RFCs didn't insist on 7-bit channels?
If the IETF didn't come up with unbelievably bizarre new ways of pushing
8-bit data through 7-bit channels?  Do we really need RFC3492?   If all the
work going into squashing everything into the ubiquitous 7-bit channel which
became irrelevant with the adoption of new link-leven protocols a few
decades ago went instead into eliminating spam would we not make more useful
progress?