On 1/25/2025 4:00 PM, Richard Clayton wrote:
the notion of giving the sender the task of deciding on which headers to
sign and then adding headers in twice to avoid non-RFC compliant
messages being erroneously accepted is exotic
Except it isn't. Flexibility is not exotic. Adaptability is not exotic.
Presumably next you will call giving the sender the task of deciding
what to write is exotic?
Distinguishing basic mechanism from specific application is not exotic.
In fact, it has long been considered essential design discipline.
Failure to appreciate that creates narrow, rigid designs that cannot be
improved without full, slow, painful, expensive replacement.
Email has often been declared to require full replacement, where
incremental enhancement wound up proving easier, quicker, and entirely
sufficient.
For 50 years.
And your set of bright, diligent folk who have put in so much time on
this topic have not offered any explanation or documentation about how
this causes a problem, never-mind a problem that needs 'fixing'.
... saying that this is no
longer required (as we do in DKIM2) will remove the exotic-ness but if
we have to support the old scheme in parallel then there is no gain
possible -- and if you handle emails at the billion scale you care about
even small efficiency gains
It is always good to make a system less flexible, in order to assuage
the discomfort of some folk, and to solve a problem that does not exist.
the notion of catering for reordering of headers when almost no system
does (and if it does it could arrange to undo that) is exotic. DKIM2
will remove that (you won't find that in what we've written so far
because Murray has discouraged technical discussion)
The notion of demanding rigid sequences, when the operational system has
worked fine without that bit of rigidity is what is exotic. Or simply
unworkable. Perhaps you would prefer X.400? Now /that/ was exotic!
Again, I'm sure we should feel sorry for the discomfort some folk feel
about this, but you neglected to describe or document the actual
problems this well-established mechanism is causing. Other than your
not liking it.
the notion that simple is useful for headers is exotic
The idea that it isn't is not exotic. It is silly. Without merit.
Without substance. Without any documentation of problems it causes.
In fact, that model for the header as been a distinctive choice for a
variety of Internet technologies, very much in contrast with some other
communities' choices, for designs that proved difficult to implement and
deploy and which utterly failed.
But hey, some folk don't like it, and after all, they have thought long
and hard about this, so it is essential that they be accommodated.
... the notion
that allowing a choice of relaxed or simple for bodies means that people
have to engineer for both -- that's exotic
Right. Everyone must use ASCII, because allowing Unicode would be
exotic. Everyone must use all uppercase, because mixed case is exotic.
And all email must be in English, because using other languages is exotic.
Or maybe it is OK to start with some flexibility, when there was no
operational history to give a clear sense of what is needed, and the
desire was to permit some exploration.
Just as it is fine to use the experience to later converge on more
restriction in choice.
That's a process that isn't exotic. It's mature.
Which calling the original arrangement exotic isn't.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
bluesky: @dcrocker.bsky.social
mast: @dcrocker@mastodon.social
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