Re: Proposed Proposed Statement on e-mail encryption at the IETF

[Warren Kumari <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 1:59 PM, Nico Williams <[e-mail]> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 10:15:54AM -0700, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>> On Jun 2, 2015, at 6:44 AM, Joe Abley <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> > If the argument that we should use HTTPS everywhere (which I do not
>> > disagree with) is reasonable, it feels like an argument about
>> > sending encrypted e-mail whenever possible ought to be similarly
>> > reasonable. Given that so much of the work of the IETF happens over
>> > e-mail, a focus on HTTP seems a bit weird.
>
> There is no point to PGP encryption when posting to *public* mailing
> lists, not even if done by the list processor (which is the only way
> that makes sense).
>
> SMTP, however, should use TLS, opportunistically or with DANE, as they
> don't know whether a destination of a message they are transmitting is
> a public list.
>
> MUAs really must use TLS for SUBMIT as well.
>
>> This is a terrible idea. If the IETF mailer thinks it knows my PGP
>> encryption key, and I don't because I have lost it or invalidated it,
>> [...]
>
> Yes, but if we limit this to just SMTP, of course the ietf.org MTAs
> should support TLS, and they should have TLSA RRs for DANE.

The ietf.org MTA does support TLS:
wkumari$ dig +short MX ietf.org
0 mail.ietf.org.
wkumari$ echo -e 'EHLO example.com\nquit' | nc mail.ietf.org 25 | grep START
250-STARTTLS

There also is a DANE record:

wkumari$ dig +short TLSA _25._tcp.mail.ietf.org
3 1 1 0C72AC70B745AC19998811B131D662C9AC69DBDBE7CB23E5B514B566 64C5D3D6

(thanks to Glen and Matt for having set this up, and Viktor for all of
his work helping with the TLSA record and getting DANE support into
Postfix)

W

>
> Nico
> --
>



-- 
I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
idea in the first place.
This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
of pants.
   ---maf