I don't think this is a good plan. I am not at all opposed in principle to the idea of making changes to the email infrastructure that are effectively mandatory in order to combat Internet crime. I do not think that any scheme that mandates use of CA services is likely to be acceptable however. The biggest mistake of S/MIME was to design the toll boths into the protocol. The result is a very slow rate of adoption. >From the point of view of CA providers it is much better to have 30% of a market that will reach saturation in 4 years than 100% of a market that will still be far from saturation in 30 years time. I agree that getting authentication into the email protocols is a good thing, but TLS does not achieve much more than SPF/Sender-ID in that respect. DKIM is a much better platform. The problem with TLS is that it does not even connect with the weakest link that the criminals are exploiting. That is the two feet beween the screen and the user's head. We need to secure that link and do it in a way that is stronger than an authenticated domain name. I think that to combat phishing we have to bind the bank brand into the signature by means of a highly trustworthy group of trusted third parties. I call that concept secure internet letterhead. I can build Secure Internet Letterhead as a layer on top of DKIM, I cannot do that with TLS. All TLS is really going to provide is transport layer authentication and confidentiality. Those are worthwhile but not critical. I expect that most CAs that offer Secure Internet Letterhead certs will also bundle an X.509 cert that can be used for TLS. > -----Original Message----- > From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On > Behalf Of thomas schorpp > Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2005 12:59 PM > To: ietf@xxxxxxxx > Subject: RFC 2487 [5]: Suggest dropping of "TLS Required"- > forbid and extensions of current standards > > > hi there, > > i cant find the appropriate WG list to discuss this. > so i posted it here. > > item: > > Hoffman Standards Track > [Page 1] > > > RFC 2487 SMTP Service Extension > January 1999 > > > > 5. The STARTTLS Command > > > A publicly-referenced SMTP server MUST NOT require use of the > STARTTLS extension in order to deliver mail locally. This rule > prevents the STARTTLS extension from damaging the > interoperability of > the Internet's SMTP infrastructure. A publicly-referenced > SMTP server > is an SMTP server which runs on port 25 of an Internet > host listed in > the MX record (or A record if an MX record is not present) for the > domain name on the right hand side of an Internet mail address. > > suggestion: > > 1. will be dropped > 2. standards will be extended with requirement to present > valid approved-CA-signed certificates at using tls with > mailservers 3. standards will be extended to require > connection with xsmtps first with fallback to normal smtp or > implement a fallforward to xsmpts if a server/client requires it.. > > reasons: > > - no more state of the art and technology (1999), nearly all > products support tls > - ongoing criminal phishing activity over smtp > - strong and free certificates for everyone availlable at > CACert inc., etc. > - ongoing ucbe activity, spammers could be caught and charged > more easily with their certificates as evidence, same to phishers. > - the current state breaks xsmtps networking since theres no > method to notify clients to reattempt with xsmtps. > - expected more systems ressources needed for this are more > economical than current damage from ucbe and phishing > - S/MIME is spreading too slow and unergonomical, risky and > too high effort for simple end users. > - see https, better lets do it on transport layer > - most end users and their certificate trust/intend is > controlled mainly by a well known u.s. software company > charging horrent and unreasonable fees to distribute so even > approved CA Certificates cant be easily mass-provided. > - several local country signature law issues > - information freedom and privacy > > ... RFC... > > y > tom > > > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf