Re: [dmarc-ietf] Signaling MLMs

[Neil Anuskiewicz <[e-mail]>]




> On Apr 15, 2023, at 7:29 AM, Scott Kitterman <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On April 15, 2023 12:26:16 PM UTC, Laura Atkins <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> On Apr 15, 2023, at 4:25 AM, Scott Kitterman <[e-mail]> wrote:
> ...
>>> Or [person] gets a Gmail account for his IETF work and doesn't bother tilting at
>>> windmills.
>> 
>> That solution only works until gmail publishes p=reject. At one point they said they were going to do that. 
>> 
>> It seems to me that there is zero harm in actively documenting the problems with DMARC and making interoperability recommendations about who should and should not be publishing restrictive policies.
> 
> I agree on documenting the issues with DMARC and making recommendations to improve interoperability.  There are issues and they're significant, but we shouldn't catastrophize them either.
> 
> To your other point, if that happens then people will move to another provider if it affects them negatively.  If free email providers that don't have p=reject get hard to find, then that probably creates a demand signal and some entrepreneur will fill the void.

Does anyone know if there are promising paths that these market signals could impel?

I don’t like dealing with mailing list issues either and I have to do so regularly. If there were some avenues of r&d that looked promising then that would mean the market signals would likely make it worth the hassle of implementing a solution. 

I agree there’s a problem. There was that one that gave me headaches and stress as recently as a couple weeks ago. It’s not that I don’t think there’s a problem but I do think there’s some catastrophising. I think this is a solvable problem.

If we write a solid appendix that explains the problems and the options for addressing it as I think was proposed, that would provide the information needed, while making it clear the IETF isn’t the internet regulatory agency. 

I think if someone came up with a viable solution their ML software would do well. Problems are the markets way of facilitating the solving of difficult problems. I’m not a market purist but the market is very good at certain things. Market signals are the bat signal for entrepreneurs to leverage gaps in the market. It could be one of the established players that gets there first or it could be an upstart. I think the odds favor one of the better established players.

Neil