[ietf-dkim] draft-ietf-dkim-ssp-02.txt Discardable/Exclusive

[Steve Atkins]

On Feb 8, 2008, at 11:18 AM, Eric Allman wrote:

> Doug,
>
> I am in no way married to the word DISCARDABLE.  We used it in  
> SSP-02 because it matched ASP.
>
> It has occurred to me that we've spent FAR too much time arguing  
> about exactly what word to use.  I'm deeply tempted to switch to  
> numbers, special characters, or random gibberish strings so that  
> people have to read the actual description.

It's an assertion that the sender would prefer that the recipient not  
deliver some small fraction of legitimate email as well as some small  
fraction of illegitimate email, rather than delivering those small  
fractions of legitimate and illegitimate email.

In the senders opinion, it is more important that mail claiming to be  
from them not be delivered than for it to be delivered.

The english meaning of "discardable" matches the semantics pretty  
well. If we want implementors to easily understand and deploy the  
specification, and more importantly the limits of them doing so, thats  
fairly important.

Cheers,
   Steve