On 12/Jan/12 04:28, Steve Atkins wrote:
> Some comments on 
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-marf-as/?include_text=1

Thank you, Steve.  Glad to read from you again on this list.

> Section 5. Solicited and Unsolicited Reports
> 
> "Scored high by spam filters" really isn't a good reason to send an
> abuse report.

Yet, for good messages, that use case of ARF would very closely
resemble the intended use of its ancestor NDN.

> Sending mail that "looks like" spam according to a mechanical
> content filter isn't an AUP violation, and reports about it aren't
> going to be actionable as there's nothing wrong with sending mail
> with a high spamassassin score. [...]
> 
> Non-actionable reports - whether they be false positives or not -
> reduce the efficiency of an abuse desk. Let's just not mention
> reports of mail scored high by spam filters, and quietly leave it
> as part of "anything else the sender considers".

So this is a case where it is useful to know whether the
report-trigger was auto or manual.  Previous mumbling is here:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/marf/current/msg01233.html

> (Automated reports of spam-like content may well be useful as part
> of an "avoid false positives" sort of feedback loop, but not as an
> abuse report.

This reasoning seems to imply it is better to add a new Feedback-Type
rather than a new field with a human/auto indication.  (Assuming we
won't then need, say, a manually-discovered-virus type.)

> The DKIM signer of a message is definitely a good target for
> solicited reports as part of a feedback loop. For unsolicited
> reports it's much less clear that that's the case. There are some
> mechanical reasons - the d= value is an identifier for reputation,
> not a domain intended to receive email, so we don't want to imply
> that [email protected] is automatically a good place
> to report mail that's signed with d=transactional.blighty.com.

That can be covered by reporting-discovery.

> In a broader sense, though, it's likely that the DKIM signing
> domain is the author of the mail - and if the mail is
> objectionable, they're often the least useful place to notify. In
> the case of mail sent through an ESP, the DKIM d= domain is likely
> to end up at the customer, rather than at the ESP where it's more
> likely to be handled correctly.

IMHO, ESPs should keep current and apply BCP 167.

> That's one instance of a more general issue of sending automated,
> unsolicited reports. Identifying an appropriate recipient for a
> report is *hard* to do automatically, while "shotgunning" reports
> to multiple email addresses because one of them might be
> appropriate is unhelpful. Sending them in a format that's intended
> primarily to be machine-readable and handled automatically by the
> entity receiving the reports leads to the problem of knowing what
> email address at what entity is intended to handle machine-readable
> reports. There's no standard for it, and there's a risk that those
> machine-readable reports will be discarded or ignored if they're
> sent to role addresses chosen at random.

Reporting-discovery can only cover authenticated mail (DKIM and/or
SPF).  For the rest, only the relay's IP address can be a meaningful
automated feedback target, AFAICS.  But then we'd also need to tell
network providers what to do when they receive ARF messages at their
abuse-mailboxes, since they are neither authors nor senders.

> Section 7. Receiving and Processing Complaint-Based Solicited Reports
> 
> "Point 3 - Mail operators SHOULD utilize an automated system to
> receive and process these reports".
> 
> That's really an engineering and operational decision. If I only
> receive two or three ARF reports a day, and my MUA or ticketing
> system can display them correctly, then handling them as part of my
> usual customer support / abuse desk workflow is likely to be more
> reliable (and much less expensive to implement) than an automated
> system. An ARF based FBL is still of value to me, but automating it
> would be a poor decision.

How about

  3.  Mail operators are urged to utilize a system that understands
      ARF messages and displays and processes them adequately, along
      the guidelines of Section 4 of [RFC6449].  Automated systems
      SHOULD receive and process these reports as discussed in
      Section 4.4 of [RFC6449].
?

> I don't think that experience purely of sending unsolicited ARF
> reports can really lead to the claim that all recipients handle
> them well - as the recipients that *don't* handle them well are
> simply going to discard or ignore the report, rather than trying to
> work out why it was sent.

Senders of unsolicited reports need some kind of acknowledgment,
sometimes, especially from new consumers that are not yet well
characterized.  Not boilerplate, but a few crisply handwritten lines
that help to decide whether to continue sending, or stop for the time
being.  Would such actions then turn the FBL into a "solicited" one?

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