Subject: Re: [Uta] SMTP Over TLS on Port 26 - Implicit TLS Proposal
From: Viruthagiri Thirumavalavan <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2019 10:53:12 +0530
List-Id: UTA working group mailing list <uta.ietf.org>

>
> I'm going to agree with Viruthagiri on this one.  Setting up a web
> server, including TLS certificate, is more advanced than many people are
> comfortable with.  Granted, all of the requirements / steps involved are
> relatively simple in and of themselves.  There are more than a few of
> them, any one of which can be problematic for someone who is completely
> new to doing such.

Finally there is one person agree with me on something. Your response is a
sight for sore eyes mate.
Anyone else wanna join me? I don't think SMTPS will be introduced anytime
soon if you guys are silent.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to standardise a flawed solution. That's
the last thing I want to do.  However if my solution really makes sense,
then it can make a difference to the SMTP world.

@Viktor Dukhovni

Because of your criticism, I improved my solution. Credit goes to you.  Thanks
very much for that

@John

Your new criticisms are most welcome. But I'm not sure whether your old
criticisms are valid.

IDNs use a complex encoding and there is no reason to assume the encoding
> won't occasionally include the string "26pref".

Can you provide an example where it's not the case?

Sorry, but this is a fantasy.  SMTP routing still falls back to an A
> record if there's no MX and the DNS has been around for 30 years.  And
> your assmptions about what is hard and what is easy may be correct for
> your personal situation, but they are not true in general.
> Look at it this way -- if you can set up an STS server in less than a
> decade, you're ahead of the game.

Here is the problem with that part.  A records are IE6 equivalent in the
SMTP world. These days everyone moved to the MX records. There are rare
cases where some mail servers still rely on A records.

My solution doesn't deal with A records. It's the clients decision whether
to use MX record or A record.

Let's just pretend my solution rely on A records, you are criticising my
work saying that 0.1% people not gonna upgrade to "MX Records". On the
other hand, you think 100% of the internet gonna upgrade to a completely
new system STS.

Isn't that irony?