[ietf-dkim] Feedback on draft-ietf-dkim-mailinglists for discussion

[Steve Atkins]

On Aug 2, 2010, at 11:13 AM, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ietf-dkim-bounces at mipassoc.org [mailto:ietf-dkim-
>> bounces at mipassoc.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Macdonald
>> Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 10:53 AM
>> To: DKIM List
>> Subject: Re: [ietf-dkim] Feedback on draft-ietf-dkim-mailinglists for
>> discussion
>> 
>>> c) A "-1" to the idea of altering From: to cope with ADSP; the reason
>> given:
>>> "This presumes endpoints will understand a DKIM-related From:-altered
>>> message."
>> 
>> I must of missed that point in Daniel's thread. I hadn't realized that
>> the From would of been conditionally re-written. Today, endpoints (I
>> take that to mean MUAs), don't seem to have a standard way of dealing
>> with mailing lists anyway. So I'd say -1 to the reason.
> 
> I don't think there's anything conditional about it.  The suggestion is to rewrite From: when the MLM remails its modified content.
> 
> It sounds like you're saying that's a good idea.  By my count that's three in favour and two against, and I suspect that's not rough consensus in either direction, but is probably enough to add some discussion about it to the draft, unless of course there's objection to even mentioning the idea.

Altering the From: address is the behaviour of an anonymous remailer.

That's a valid use case, certainly, but a tiny, tiny niche compared with the usual use of a mailing list manager, where the point of the MLM is to enable people to communicate with each other. In almost all cases the From: field should identify the person who wrote the email, not some intermediate implementation detail.

A "-1" on ever altering the From: field for any reason other than special requirements of the people running a specific mailing list.

Cheers,
  Steve