Re: the introduction problem, was Email and reputation (was Re: Service outages planned for April 25)

[Masataka Ohta <[e-mail]>]

Vittorio Bertola wrote:

> I see this as one of the many manifestations of possibly the
> biggest shortcoming in the original design of the Internet's
> architecture, i.e. not having an "identity layer" taking care of
> user authentication and information sharing in a uniform way
> below all application protocols

That's just impossible because unit of identification (company,
site, family, individual, host, process in a host etc.) and
required security is different case by case depending on
applications.

According to the end to end argument,

    The function in question can completely and correctly be
    implemented only with the knowledge and help of the
    application standing at the end points of the communication
    system

some knowledge available at the application layer is
essentially required.

Moreover, knowledge merely at application layer is often not
enough. For example, even if application is limited to e-mail,
required security for identification depends on the amount of
possible loss caused by security breach, which may be $1, $1k,
$1M or $1G, "knowledge" on which is available at the upper
sublayer of the application layer.

						Masataka Ohta