On 1/25/21 5:25 AM, Todd Herr wrote:
On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 9:53 PM Michael Thomas <m...@mtcc.com <mailto:m...@mtcc.com>> wrote:


    On 1/24/21 6:29 PM, John R. Levine wrote:
    > I realized why the arguments about whether to require
    authentication
    > on reports are pointless.
    >
    A blatant assertion. The onus of proof is with people who say we
    should
    accept information from unknown sources. Extraordinary claims require
    extraordinary evidence. I have been doing security related stuff for
    long enough to know that being humble in the face of adversaries
    is the
    most prudent course. State actors can get involved when they
    figure they
    can game things to their advantage. To be dismissive is complete
    hubris.


I've spent several days thinking about these tickets, and for the life of me I can't see what the payoff might be for someone to forge a DMARC report.

I suppose nominally there's a denial of service risk, where a bad actor could flood a rua or ruf mailbox with forged reports or just email in general, but that's going to exist whether or not the "reports" are DKIM-signed.

The main thing I've learned over the years of dealing with security is to not underestimate what a motivated attacker can do. Your imagination is not the same as their imagination. Closing #98 in particular is absolutely ridiculous: the report should already have a DKIM signature or SPF so it's just a matter of making sure its valid. Why would you *not* want to insure that? The amount of justification for *not* having the receiver authenticate it is a mountain. The amount of effort to authenticate it is trivial for mail. Levine's dismissal of security concerns because he has anecdotal "evidence" from a backwater domain carries no weight at all.

Mike
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