Re: [Mailman-Developers] Author_is_list option in upcoming mailman 2.1.16

2013-09-19 Thread Murray S. Kucherawy
I really wish I could keep up with all the lists where interesting stuff is
going on.

We produced an RFC a few years ago that tries to tackle the names and
definitions of all the various roles (RFC 5598).  That document
deliberately avoided defining what a Sender is because that word has become
so overloaded as to be hyper-ambiguous.  Thus:

On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 12:13 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull step...@xemacs.orgwrote:

 Franck Martin writes:

   In the upcoming mailman 2.1.16 there has been the introduction of
   the optional feature author_is_list
  
   Replace the sender

 Before you release, s/sender/author/, please.  When discussing
 Internet email, sender != author.  The name of the feature, author is
 list, is an obvious falsehood: lists don't write posts, they relay
 them.  These policies do not conform to the email RFCs.  (Given the
 semantics of From set out in RFC 5322, they may even constitute
 copyright infringement in the absence of a license from posters
 permitting From-munging.  But that's not the topic here.)


I disagree.  Formally, Mailman is creating a new message using (likely) a
large portion of the original message.  Unless the output is completely
identical, Mailman is an Author.  So I think the name is right, unless you
want to tie the name of the feature to the list's configuration, and I'm
sure you don't want to do that.

This isn't absolute of course.  There are mushy topics like Did the
Message-Id change?  (One could argue that if the Author changes, a new
Message-Id should be generated.)  Should a new Message-Id have been
generated?  (Yes, if there was any meaningful content change whatsoever.)

Either way, I think the name is right as-is.

-MSK
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Re: [Mailman-Developers] Author_is_list option in upcoming mailman 2.1.16

2013-09-19 Thread Murray S. Kucherawy
On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull step...@xemacs.orgwrote:

 That's nonsense.  There's no reason to do this in the absence of
 correct DKIM signatures by Mailman or its MTA, and every reason
 (starting with RFCs 724, 733, 822, 2822, and 5322) not to do so.  Of
 course if the point is to violate the RFCs, then this will still
 violate the RFCs without the MTA and DNS changes.  But surely that's
 not what Franck means by useful.


I'm familiar with RFC 822 and up, but can you specify what exactly is being
violated?  I'm not saying I disagree, I just want to go to the
reference/rule you have in mind.

If the concern is with replacing the From: field on a relayed message, then
one could argue Mailman is issuing a new message anyway, so it's free to
replace or rewrite anything it chooses.  Again referring to RFC 5598, it's
a Mediator, not a Relay, though it could also be configured to act as a
Relay.  But if it were doing that, DKIM signatures would almost always
survive.

If it's something else, I'd like to understand.


The only real alternative to DKIM signingby Mailman or its MTA is to
 pass the original message through, optionally with additional headers
 (eg, RFC 2369), but otherwise verbatim, ensuring valid DKIM existing
 signatures won't be corrupted.


Relay vs. Mediator mode, basically.



 There is an alternative to From-munging, though, which is to
 encapsulate the whole message (either as message/rfc822 MIME type, or
 as a one-message digest).  Then the Mailman host can DKIM sign the
 wrapper message without invalidating the signature on the main
 message.  In theory this could also be done with a multipart/mixed
 (*not* multipart/digest), with a structure like

 multipart/mixed
 text/plain; Mailman list header
 message/rfc822
 text/plain; Mailman list footer


Right, that's an option.



 I have no idea what MUAs would do with that, though. :-(


Me either.



   All of this leads me to think that making this available to list
   owners should be an installation decision rather than being done by
   default.

 If the Mailman host is using DKIM, then list owners will definitely
 want the option available.  So site owners should have to make a
 conscious decision to shut it off.  On the other hand, since it does
 involve a serious systematic RFC violation, I think it would be a good
 idea to eliminate the DEFAULT_AUTHOR_IS_LIST option.  Ie, require list
 owners to set it explicitly, or site owners to hack code.


I definitely agree that it should be off by default as it violates the
Principle of Least Astonishment.

-MSK
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