Identification of an email author (was - Re: [dmarc-ietf] IETF Mailing Lists and DMARC)

[Dave Crocker <[e-mail]>]

On 11/2/2016 2:58 PM, Brandon Long wrote:
> The difference is mostly cosmetic, though depending on your mail client,
> there may be other downsides.  And it may violate RFC 5322.

Brandon,

You know that I know that the attacks that generated the use of DMARC, 
which is causing the current situation, are serious.  I'm mentioning 
that here to make sure the context for what follows is clear...

Email is communication between an author and one or more recipients.

Everything in between them is 'overhead'.  The overhead functions need 
to be careful to avoid cavalierly reducing the utility of email, even as 
the changes are meant to aid in the use of email.

Identification of the author and recipients is meaningful to them. 
That's not 'cosmetic'.

And software tools employed by users take advantage of this 
identification, for searching and for organizing.

In a highly diverse world, one of the problems of being a very major 
player is that it becomes far too easy not to see all the diversity or 
to appreciate its import to others. After all, most of that diversity is 
seen as such a tiny percentage of the activity. This is the essence of 
ethnocentrism.

Changing the contents of the rfc5322.From field is changing basic 
statements about authorship.

Perhaps there's no practical choice right now, but please let's not be 
cavalier about its import.

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net