Subject: [ietf-dkim] Issue: clarifications needed for usage examples (Appendix A)

From: "Siegel, Ellen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:53:21 -0400

I know we're trying to avoid new issues, but I think we need some
clarifications/extensions to the usage examples in Appendix A. 

1) In A.1, make the list of "other paths" more complete. In particular,
add participation in mailing lists, and sending mail from external email
clients:

"...Such paths could include MTAs at hotels or hotspot networks used by
traveling users, web sites that provide "mail an article" features, user
participation in mailing lists, or use of 3rd party mail clients that
support multiple user identities."

2) Add an example for dkim=unknown (or no record). All of the existing
examples are for the use of "all" or "discardable". We need a clear
example of where this is not a good idea, where a domain should publish
"unknown" (or not publish at all). 

Add new section:
A.6 Domains with Independent Users and Liberal Use Policies
When a domain has independent users and its usage policy does not
explicitly restrict them to sending mail only from designated in-house
mail servers (e.g. many ISP domains and even some corporate domains),
then it is only appropriate to publish an ADSP record containing
"unknown". Publishing either "all" or "discardable" will likely result
in significant breakage because independent users are likely to send
mail from the external paths enumerated in section A.1. 

3) Clarify the use of the term "forgery" in section A.3. It is
misleading to represent lack of an Author Signature as a "forgery"
without the clarification that this is true only in the case where there
is a reasonable expectation that usage of that domain name is
appropriately controlled. This is implicit from the position of the
statement within this particular section, but could easily be misread. 

Modify the sentence about forgeries to read:
"In the case of domains with tightly controlled outgoing mail, this
latter kind of mail is sometimes loosly called "forgeries")."

Ellen

________________
Ellen Siegel
Constant Contact
[email-masked]

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From: "Frank Ellermann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:26:27 +0200

Ellen Siegel wrote:

[...various good proposals...]

Seconded, hopefully uncontroversial.

 Frank

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From: "J D Falk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:41:05 -0400

> support multiple user identities."

+1

> mail from the external paths enumerated in section A.1.

Not sure about the wording, but +1 to the need for a statement along these
lines.

-- 
J.D. Falk
Return Path

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