Re: Why are we here? What are our goals?

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:53:32 -0500 
Hector Santos <[email protected]> wrote:

> From a software design standpoint, a see HEAD/BODY transaction as easy
> to do You still need an EHLO like concept unless we also have a
> "server attribute" concept at the DNS lookup level.

I'm unconvinced that a HELO equivalent is necessary.  In fact I'd
suggest that explicitly relying on the contents of a HELO equivalent for
the rigour of the system would be broken.  The current reliance on the
transport-centric model for email, factually, causes many of the current
problems with spam as it attempts to code the path information in the
Received: headers and then provides no way to audit that information.

Data can be self-documenting and self-identifying.  Its audit
characteristics do not need to be bound to the transport method or
transport characteristics.  Assuming fully auditable and audited data,
in the general case path information is unnecessary, consider:

  You have a message.  It says it is from Bubba, was sent on date QRS,
  was addressed to Boffo, contained the following payload when sent, and
  was delivered on data XYZ.  If you can verify all these claims as
  correct, including that Bubba and Boffo are the identities they claim
  to be, then do you really care how it got to you?

From a SysAdm perspective and a failure analysis perspective, yes, that
sort of data can be useful, but I don't see it as either integral to the
audit requirements.

> Its been fun people.

Oh.  

-- 
J C Lawrence
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
[email protected]               He lived as a devil, eh?
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.