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Re: Why are mail servers not also key servers?

Doug Royer <douglasroyer@gmail.com> Thu, 20 April 2017 17:48 UTC

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Subject: Re: Why are mail servers not also key servers?
To: ietf@ietf.org
References: <849511c0-6526-ecbe-2b56-7b459eaf010b@hawaii.edu> <B897A3A3-4A47-4C74-B79F-4F93C86A338C@gmail.com> <82ab9e4d-05ba-bc39-c7d1-bda6ee8d9be5@hawaii.edu>
From: Doug Royer <douglasroyer@gmail.com>
Organization: http://SoftwareAndServices.NET
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Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2017 11:48:04 -0600
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On 04/20/2017 11:01 AM, Jon wrote:
> On 20/04/2017 16:29, Yoav Nir wrote:
> (lots snip)
> This is why I think smtp should be extended. All your mail agents
> support (E)SMTP and presumably they would all support an extension to
> smtp. The private keys will need to be stored some how to allow for
> multiple clients, but a key generated from user input could be used to
> decrypt a stored copy of the private key.


You seem to be describing a configuration server.  (I forget the RFC#, I 
think it was a Chris Newman one). A configuration server could store a 
BLOB of data that could be decrypted by a client that had the key.

I would like to see an extension so that the MUA could contact the 
destination server (perhaps their MX record host) and get a users PUBLIC 
key. Perhaps (just an idea - no screaming please) a new TXT record type 
that points to the domains PubKey server.

I think it is undisputed that the MX server would know which email 
recipients are valid for itself. Or if a proxy SMTP server, could relay 
the request to the real hidden SMTP server.

As someone else pointed out, draft-moore-email-addrquery is a great start.



-- 

Doug Royer - (http://DougRoyer.US  http://goo.gl/yrxJTu )
DouglasRoyer@gmail.com
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