Re: [dmarc-ietf] Report bombing is a prolem, Forensic report loops are not

[Alessandro Vesely <[e-mail]>]

On Mon 01/Feb/2021 17:29:23 +0100 John R Levine wrote:
>> 3.3.  Transport
>>
>>   Email streams carrying DMARC failure reports MUST conform to the
>>   DMARC mechanism, thereby resulting in an aligned "pass".  Special
>>   care must be taken of authentication, as failure to authenticate
>>   failure reports may result in mail loops.
>>
>>   Reporters SHOULD rate limit the number of failure reports sent to any
>>   recipient to avoid overloading recipient systems.
>>
>> Not MUST?
> 
> You might have other ways to prevent mailbombing, e.g., only sending failure 
> reports to people who you know have bigger mail systems than you do.


Right.  However, Murray recalled Section 6.3 of SMTP:

                           Whatever mechanisms are used, servers MUST
    contain provisions for detecting and stopping trivial loops.


Mailbombing in general is not a loop.  Two report generators reporting each 
other's failure to authenticate a failure report /is/ a loop.  So it deserves a 
MUST.  Perhaps:

    Reporters SHOULD rate limit the number of failure reports sent to any
    recipient to avoid overloading recipient systems.  In addition,
    reporters MUST ensure that such rate limiting or any other means
    can effectively stop possible mail loops.

?



Best
Ale
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