Re: [dmarc-ietf] making mail not work for your users, was the endless mailing list silliness

["MH Michael Hammer (5304)" <[e-mail]>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf
> Of J. Gomez
> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 4:56 PM
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: [dmarc-ietf] making mail not work for your users, was the
> endless mailing list silliness
> 
> On Wednesday, April 17, 2013 12:39 PM [GMT+1=CET], John Levine wrote:
> 
> > Perhaps we could try and think more clearly about providing service to
> > actual mail users and less about hypothetical spoofing attacks on
> > people who are not plausible spoof targets.
> 
> It's pretty clear by now that DMARC is not about protecting actual email
> users, but about protecting big brands from email spoofing their brand.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> J. Gomez
> 

Having seen the damage done to individuals clicking on those phishing or malware emails purporting to be from banks and other big brands I strongly disagree with your statement which appears somewhat dismissive. The further we can push the bad guys from being able to create and deliver fake emails that look like communications from organizations, the better off we all are. It doesn't necessarily solve the issue of fake emails claiming to be from individuals at other types of domains but then individuals aren't likely to have a legitimate reason to ask you to log into "your" bank portal and provide credentials.

Using strong email authentication, malicious site takedowns and other approaches we have significantly reduced the risk for people who receive email that claims to be from our sites. Do we benefit? Of course we do. But failing to recognize the benefit to individual people is extremely short sighted. I would argue that organizations not making these sorts of efforts are doing a disservice to their customers and the community at large.

The fact that SPF/DKIM/DMARC do not address every problem under the sun does not mean that these authentication approaches aren't useful in protecting endusers.

Mike