[feedback-report] Re: I-D ACTION:draft-shafranovich-feedback-report-01.txt

[Yakov Shafranovich]

Bruce Lilly wrote:
> 
> Review of         draft-shafranovich-feedback-report-01      by B. Lilly
> 
...

> 
>    [X] The document should probably be split: registration of media
>        types in the standards tree requires an RFC of any type.
>        Registration procedures (which should be specified for
>        registration of extension items) are typically specified in a BCP
>        RFC.  Specifications with conformance criteria (which should be
>        explicit) are typically Standards Track RFCs.
> 

Can you elaborate as to why the document must be split? For example, RFC 
3464 includes the MIME registration in the same document. Why should 
this document, which is also a child-of-RFC3462 be any different?

> The document suffers from the following serious defects:
> 
...
> 
>    [X] missing or inadequate internationalization considerations
> 

I am not sure what this is refering to. This is a message intended for 
machines, not humans, and follows the same conventions as RFC 3462 from 
which it descends. What internationalization issues have to be discussed?

>    [X] incompatible with one or more Internet Standards
> 

Can you be more specific? What Internet standards is this document not 
compatible with, what specific issues are there, etc.?

> 
> Specific issues with the draft:
> 
...

>    o The draft implies that "opt-out" is viable.  It is not, and the
>      draft will meet some considerable resistance if it does not
>      distance itself from that spammer-supported concept.  (opt-out is
>      not viable because there are more than 10 billion potential senders
>      of unsolicited material (nearly that many individuals, plus a large
>      number of corporate entites).  Responding to a single message from
>      each, at 5 seconds per response, working continuously, would take
>      more than 1,500 years of uninterrupted effort.  How long do you
>      plan to live, and do you wish to do something other than "opt-out"
>      of unsolicited messages?)
> 

This is a technical standard, not an editorial page. The "opt-out" 
option is included to be used in feedback loops from ISPs to legit bulk 
mailers such as SkyList, etc., not a general opt-out mechanism. It is 
perfectly viable according to the ISPs and the bulk mailers I have 
spoken to.

>    o The draft states "this format is intended specifically for
>      communications among providers", implying that a mere individual
>      (not a provider) cannot use it to report abuse to a government
>      agency (also not a provider), for example.
> 

I will change it to read "this format is intended primarly for 
communications among providers, but can also be used in other 
situations". Would that be more clear?

>    o The draft states "The first MIME part of the message contains a
>      human readable description of the report" but does not state
>      whether or not that part can be a MIME composite type (e.g.
>      multipart/alternative).  Nor does it provide for (e.g.) an audio
>      type, which might be appropriate if the recipient is known to be
>      visually impaired.
> 

This is a child-of-RFC3462. Whatever is specified there, applies here. 
Last time I checked, I did not see any of those options there or in any 
standards that descend from it such as DSNs and MSG-TRACK.

>    o The draft states "it is RECOMMENDED that the entire original email
>      message be included without any modification" but does not indicate
>      how such a message containing a virus or other malware can be
>      successfully conveyed in the presence of filtering (at the sender's
>      site, in transit, or at the intended recipient's site) without
>      encryption and/or encoding.
> 

This issue was brought up by someone already. One option would be to 
relay just the headers of the message (an option included in this 
document). However, the consensus in the discussions that I had with 
ISPs is that this is something out of scope for this document. Rather, 
this is an issue for the abuse desks (sender and receiver) to deal with.

I do not see any other plausible solution short of mucking around with 
the RFC3462 format and making this even more complicated. Both ISPs and 
abuse desks have expressed their desire to keep this simple.

>    o The draft states "The subject line of the feedback report SHOULD be
>      the same as the included email message", which conflicts with the
>      defined semantics of the Subject field as stated in RFC 2822, viz.
>      a description of the topic of the message containing it, not a
>      purported description of a different message.
> 

This was included due to the fact that smaller ISPs tend to use the 
Subject line for manual processing. This is currently the accepted 
convention and I don't know if mandating anything else will actually 
accomplish something.

However, what about prefixing the subject as follows:

"[FEEDBACK REPORT:] subject"
?

> 
>    o The draft refers to RFC 2616, which is an HTTP specification that
>      uses a different field syntax from the Internet Message Format.
> 

I did not find any other standard that defines the user agent field. The 
"User-Agent" and "Mailer" fields used by email programs are not defined 
in any standard that I was able to locate. Perhaps a new registration or 
document for the user agent field should be written, OR the syntax 
copied from RFC 2616 and included in this document in long hand.

> 
>    o In several proposed fields, e.g.  "Original-Mail-From:", the draft
>      makes statements such as "The format of this field is defined in
>      section 4.1.1.2 of RFC 2821", whereas there is no such definition
>      of any such fields in the referenced RFCs.

It is refering to the following:

"MAIL FROM:" ("<>" / Reverse-Path)
                        [SP Mail-parameters] CRLF

Specifically to everything that appears after MAIL FROM. The format is 
probably the same as Return-Path header, but I wanted to reference the 
original SMTP transaction directly.

> 
>    o The draft seeks to define a media type with multiple fields (but
>      N.B. not *header* fields in this case), but does not provide enough
>      detail:
> 
>       o Where's the syntax specification for the format?
> 
>       o What order should the fields appear in?
> 
>       o Is the order significant?
> 
>       o May empty lines appear between fields?
> 

This is a child-of-RFC3462.

>       o What about the promised extensibility?
> 

There is an extensibility section.

>       o Where are the syntax specifications for the fields?
> 

Are you refering to ABNF?

>       o Where are the BCP 90 registration templates for the fields?
> 

DNS and message tracking standards do not register their fields with BCP 
90 IANA registry. Since this is a similar child-of-RFC3462, I do not see 
why it should be any different.

>    o The media type registration form doesn't say anything about a
>      charset parameter, or about required charsets.  Can I send such a
>      report in EBCDIC?
> 

This is a child-of-RFC3462, everything that applies there applies here 
as well (only 7bit ASCII).

> 
>    o The draft proposes establishing an IANA registry for header fields
>      (actually fields which do not appear in a header).  There is
>      already such a registry and corresponding registration procedure as
>      established by BCP 90.  That mechanism could be used by extending
>      BCP 90 in small ways to accommodate specifying applicability of
>      fields to the defined media type proposed in the draft.
> 

See above comment re BCP 90 (and take a look at the DSN and MSGTRACK 
stuff as well).

> 
>    o There is no mention of architectural or internationalization
>      considerations w.r.t. keywords.  Are keywords case-independent
>      protocol elements or text?  Is it OK to use "Feedback-Type:
>      Betrug"?
> 

Are you refering to the feedback-type keywords?

> 
>    o The draft provides a catch-all "other - any other feedback that
>      doesn't fit into other types".  How does one distinguish a
>      subsequent extension from "other" (hint: only register types that
>      have a specific definition)?
> 

Other specifically refers to a case where the abuse reporter DOES NOT 
want to specific a specific feedback type and leave that task for the 
receiver.

>    o There is provision for one specific type of malware -- "virus", but
>      not other types (worms, dialers, keystroke loggers, logic bombs,
>      etc.).  The Security Glossary FYI may be a useful reference.
> 

I assumed that it includes all malware.

>    o The Security considerations section is completely unacceptable.
> 

Obviously, this is only a draft at this point and has not been sent to 
the IESG or anyone else for approval just yet. Rather, it is still 
something that needs work, and specific suggestions would be highly 
welcome. Blanket statements like the one above are not much helpful - of 
course I am aware that this section is not finished yet. If you would 
like to help writing it, I would be very happy.

>    o References are normally unnumbered sections.
> 

Can you provide a reasoning for this or is this simply something the 
community is used to?

>    o Examples are badly broken.
> 

Aside from the various 2822 problems highlited above, how so?

>    o Discussion venue should be an IETF list for documents intended as
>      IETF documents.
> 

There is no current IETF list for this type of stuff. The ietf-822 list 
is not official at this point. When this spec becomes more mature, I 
will discuss with the appropriate ADs the best avenue for moving this 
forward. But for now, there is already a dedicated list for this.

Yakov