Subject: Re: A new SMTP "3821" [Re: FTC stuff...........]

From: "Alan DeKok" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 13:30:25 -0500

Meng Weng Wong <[email-masked]> wrote:
> BTW, verbatim forwarding is practiced not just by unixheads
> with .forward files, but also by hosted domains, of which
> there are millions in existence, and alumni / lifetime email
> services like alumni.*.edu and acm.org.

  Which have well-known names and IP addresses, unlike "hit and run"
spammers.

> The hosting providers can implement workarounds, and
> forwarding service providers can implement workarounds.
> >From the receiver end, trusted-forwarder.org lets receivers
> whitelist forwarding hosts.

  Exactly.  There are multiple ways possible to get to a widely
deployed system of checking return paths.  The deployment can be
gradual, with well-understood incremental benefits at each stage.

> That leaves only the ad-hoc forwarding setups.  For those
> cases, I would like to be able to tell them "just upgrade".

  I agree.

  Alan DeKok.

---

From: "Alan DeKok" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 16:01:02 -0500

"william(at)elan.net" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> I've argued and will be happy to argue again that SMTP needs to be 
> replaced with new protocol entirely instead of putting more and more
> band-aids on 20 year old protocol that was designed for "simple" mail
> transactions.

  I'd bet that at least 1/3 of SMTP implementations in existence don't
need anything more than "simple" mail transactions.  e.g. internal
corporate mail systems.  They're protected by physical and network
security, where there's no need for additional SMTP-layer security.

  As for the other 2/3, any new email protocol will end up looking a
whole lot like SMTP.

> But creating new mail protocol to replace SMTP would take long time
> (both in terms of IETF process to create this new protocol and process 
> for it to achieve wide-spread adaption)

  You don't need the support of the IETF to design and implement a
protocol which is widely deployed.  Witness bittorrent.

  If someone designs a new SMTP-style protocol, write an
implementation, and make it reasonably backwards compatible with SMTP,
people will test it out.  If it's they like it, they'll deploy it,
independent of what the IETF thinks.

  Alan DeKok.