Re: [Emailcore] WGLC: draft-ietf-emailcore-rfc5322bis-03

[Todd Herr <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, May 6, 2022 at 12:30 PM Alexey Melnikov <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> On 06/05/2022 15:32, Todd Herr wrote:
>
>
>    - Section 3.4, second paragraph - “A mailbox receives mail. It is a
>    conceptual entity that does not necessarily pertain to file storage. For
>    example, some sites may choose to print mail on a printer and deliver the
>    output to the addressee's desk.” Do we still think this is true?
>    Perhaps a more timely example would be better, or just strike the last
>    sentence entirely?
>
> I think the example demonstrates what is meant by "not a file storage",
> which I like. I think such systems still exist.
>
> Can you suggest a better example?
>
I just believe that with the widespread proliferation of remote workers,
the idea of printing a message and having it delivered to someone's desk is
antiquated.

Here's my proposal for a better example:

A mailbox receives mail. It is a conceptual entity that does not
necessarily pertain to file storage. For example, a mailbox may be nothing
more than a gateway to a customer-support ticketing system, where a mail
message triggers one or more actions for customer-support staff to take.


[snip]

>
>    - Section 5, Security Considerations. The thoughts here are certainly
>    valid, but the text makes lots of references to risks to terminals and
>    terminal emulators, and even I at my advanced age have but a foggy
>    recollection of using such things. Can/should the language be updated to
>    reference equipment that is much more likely to be used by current and
>    future readers of this document?
>
> I have noticed this text, but decided that it is not worth changing,
> because it is still correct. And there are certainly implementations like
> "pine" that would care about terminal emulators. So personally I would not
> delete this text.
>
The current text reads:

Care needs to be taken when displaying messages on a terminal or terminal
emulator. Powerful terminals may act on escape sequences and other
combinations of US-ASCII control characters with a variety of consequences.
They can remap the keyboard or permit other modifications to the terminal
that could lead to denial of service or even damaged data. They can trigger
(sometimes programmable) answerback messages that can allow a message to
cause commands to be issued on the recipient's behalf. They can also affect
the operation of terminal attached devices such as printers. Message
viewers may wish to strip potentially dangerous terminal escape sequences
from the message prior to display. However, other escape sequences appear
in messages for useful purposes (cf. [ISO.2022.1994
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-emailcore-rfc5322bis-03.html#ISO.2022.1994>
], [RFC2045
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-emailcore-rfc5322bis-03.html#RFC2045>
], [RFC2046
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-emailcore-rfc5322bis-03.html#RFC2046>
], [RFC2047
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-emailcore-rfc5322bis-03.html#RFC2047>
], [RFC2049
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-emailcore-rfc5322bis-03.html#RFC2049>
], [BCP13
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-emailcore-rfc5322bis-03.html#BCP13>])
and therefore should not be stripped indiscriminately.


I wonder if perhaps something like the following would work better?

Care needs to be taken when storing and displaying messages. Many messages
intentionally contain content that is designed to inflict harm on the
recipient, the device being used to read the message, the network to which
the device is connected, or some combination of these. This harm could
involve, but not be limited to, remapping of the keyboard used with the
device, credential and/or PII theft, denial of service, or even damaged
data. Message handlers and message viewers may wish to strip potentially
harmful content from the message prior to storage or display.


-- 

*Todd Herr * | Technical Director, Standards and Ecosystem
*e:* [e-mail]
*m:* 703.220.4153

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