From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: more on starttls, gnutls-cli and using tls for mail Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:11:14 +0900 Message-ID: <87y5yrl8h9.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <20039.8838.116211.694328@gargle.gargle.HOWL> <8762m0n5qi.fsf@red-bean.com> <87ipq0k0q0.fsf@red-bean.com> <87fwl4nqu8.fsf@gmail.com> <87ippzf7jx.fsf@gmail.com> <87pqk4i03k.fsf@kwarm.red-bean.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1313637084 15935 80.91.229.12 (18 Aug 2011 03:11:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 03:11:24 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Karl Fogel , Vijay Lakshminarayanan , Tim Cross , Leo To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Aug 18 05:11:19 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Qtt0o-0008PU-UB for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 18 Aug 2011 05:11:19 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:59286 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qtt0o-0007Oj-2e for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:11:18 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:56446) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qtt0l-0007Oe-IU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:11:16 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qtt0k-0004Lc-Is for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:11:15 -0400 Original-Received: from mgmt1.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.223]:46009) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qtt0k-0004LM-2k for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:11:14 -0400 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mgmt1.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id 38A673FA0725; Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:11:05 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 6AF8D1A2756; Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:11:14 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: VM 8.1.93a under 21.5 (beta31) "ginger" cd1f8c4e81cd XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 130.158.97.223 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:143391 Archived-At: Tim Cross writes: > Thanks Karl. It seems there are use cases for using different > authenticated users based on the from/reply address being used. > However, it should be noted that this is not due to any requirement > or limitation of smtp Lack of a standard authentication method *is* the limitation of email-as-we-know-it. As Chad points out, there are various standards available, but SMTP itself knows about none of them, and therefore none are reliably available. There is a fundamental requirement of email-as-we-know-it, that it be a way for any dog on the Internet to get in touch with you. (This is why Karl and Chad have so many addresses: "kfogel@red-bean" means nothing to most latent correspondents, while "kfogel@civiccommons" does, to some fraction that Karl cares about.) On the other hand, the fact that among the dogs is Dogbert (aka Canter/Seigel et al, not to mention even less lovable folk such as stalkers) means that private mailboxes are widely desired. Lack of a standard authentication method *at the receiving end* means that there's no single way to identify mail from expected senders at your *private* mailbox. Lack of a standard authentication method *at the sending end* means there's no way to guarantee you'll be recognized by the recipient's private mailbox. So there's no way to implement reliable private mailboxes. Not even security-via-obscurity works because your ISP may filter, *must filter*, based on something other than sender credentials. It should be obvious that users will evolve complex, *idiosyncratic* methods to deal with this complex environment, as recipients and senders implement a variety of partially coordinated solutions to the problem of protecting mailbox privacy where desired. I don't know whether this means that smtp-auth-credentials is needed to implement such methods (presumably not, Are We Not Hackers?), but I'm a bit surprised that a project sufficiently conservative about email that RMail is its default MUA didn't follow the usual process of obsolete'ing the variable before, uh, jerking the rug out from under people's .emacs'es.