Re: [Asrg] We really don't need no stinkin IMAP or POP foram button to M

"John R Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> Sat, 06 February 2010 20:37 UTC

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Date: Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:38:04 -0500
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From: John R Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
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Cc: Anti-Spam Research Group - IRTF <asrg@irtf.org>
Subject: Re: [Asrg] We really don't need no stinkin IMAP or POP foram button to M
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> You've postulated a particular, idiosynchratic operational environment with 
> thousands of administers.  There's nothing "wrong" with that environment, but 
> we need to be careful that we don't require that it's characteristics dictate 
> design requirements for everyone.

Of course.  But what I've been hearing in this discussion is way too much 
of "that environment isn't like mine, so it's too exotic to worry about." 
A large mail hosting company with thousands of POP and IMAP customers 
should be the ideal environment for an MUA spam button, particularly since 
they already have a button in their web mail.  If we come up with 
something that they can't use, we've failed.

> Basically, with an environment of the sort you describe, everything is 
> relatively more difficult.

That hasn't been my experience.  They make all sorts of changes, but they 
don't make changes that require every reseller to change the DNS for every 
customer.

> While it's fine to try to design something so that it's scaling 
> characteristics are /better/ than linear, but it's typically also acceptable 
> for it to be linear.

I really don't understand all the resistance to a header applied by the 
MDA.  Yes, this will require a one-time change to the MDA, but you get a 
much more solid system that doesn't fail in mysterious ways when people 
have legitimate mail setups that happen to differ from the one the 
designer anticipated.  It's not unlike the advantage of DKIM over SPF.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.