Re: [Asrg] Adding a spam button to MUAs

Alessandro Vesely <vesely@tana.it> Tue, 02 February 2010 11:57 UTC

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Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:57:46 +0100
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Subject: Re: [Asrg] Adding a spam button to MUAs
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On 02/Feb/10 05:44, Chris Lewis wrote:
> As long as the client "knows" whether its front ends support this
> functionality (might be config value of administrative domain), and
> ignores them if it isn't, the security issues are fairly limited.
>
> Still need DKIM?

An ARF received at a domain's "abuse@" mailbox may arrive from an 
authenticated client, and it won't be DKIM-signed in that case. 
However, the abusive message being reported may have signatures.

Or it may arrive from a third party. A third party presumably rewrites 
both the boilerplate and the machine-readable parts, and I would 
expect it DKIM-signs them. An MTA should only receive reports where 
the Reported-Domain field indicates its own domain. Generic operators 
may also receive reports that they are supposed to "forward" 
--possibly rewriting and signing the first two parts in turn.

> If the sender is "permitted" to insert them, for them to mean much, you
> get into the same issues as end-to-end DKIM on email has. You know that
> the signature verifies or not, but you still don't know whether you want
> to trust the information.

Perhaps an MTA should verify on its own that an AR is correct. For 
authenticated clients, it may check its receive log. For reports 
routed by third parties, it may also verify its own signatures.