Skip to main content

A Media Type for Reputation Interchange
draft-ietf-repute-media-type-01

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 7071.
Authors Dr. Nathaniel S. Borenstein , Murray Kucherawy
Last updated 2011-12-16 (Latest revision 2011-11-20)
Replaces draft-kucherawy-reputation-media-type
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Formats
Reviews
Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state WG Document
Document shepherd (None)
IESG IESG state Became RFC 7071 (Proposed Standard)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD Pete Resnick
Send notices to repute-chairs@tools.ietf.org, draft-ietf-repute-media-type@tools.ietf.org
draft-ietf-repute-media-type-01
REPUTE Working Group                                       N. Borenstein
Internet-Draft                                                  Mimecast
Intended status: Standards Track                            M. Kucherawy
Expires: July 16, 2012                                         Cloudmark
                                                        January 13, 2012

                A Media Type for Reputation Interchange
                    draft-ietf-repute-media-type-01

Abstract

   This document defines a media type for exchanging reputation
   information about an arbitrary class of object.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on July 16, 2012.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft            Reputation Media Type             January 2012

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Terminology and Definitions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     2.1.  Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     2.2.  Other Definitions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3.  Description  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     3.1.  XML Schema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.2.  Example Reply  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   4.  Scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   5.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     5.1.  application/reputon Media Type Registration  . . . . . . .  8
     5.2.  Reputation Applications Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   7.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     7.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     7.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   Appendix A.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   Appendix B.  Public Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft            Reputation Media Type             January 2012

1.  Introduction

   This memo defines a media type for use when answering a reputation
   query using the "long form" query defined in [I-D.REPUTE-QUERY-HTTP],
   which uses [HTTP].  It is part of a series defining the overall
   reputation query/response structure as well as the concept of
   reputation "vocabularies" for particular applications.

   Also included is the specification for an IANA registry to contain
   definitions and symbolic names for known reputation vocabularies.

2.  Terminology and Definitions

   This section defines terms used in the rest of the document.

2.1.  Keywords

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [KEYWORDS].

2.2.  Other Definitions

   Other terms of importance in this memo are defined in
   [I-D.REPUTE-MODEL], the base memo in this document series.

3.  Description

   A new media type, "application/reputon", is defined for the
   representation of reputational data, typically in response to a
   client making a request for such data about some subject.  This media
   type has one optional parameter, "app", which conveys the specific
   application of reputation data in use, and may extend the set of data
   values that can be included in the media object itself.

   The body of the media type consists of an Extended Markup Language
   (XML) document that contains the reputation information requested.
   An XML schema is included in a later section of this document.

   The key pieces of data found in a reputon for all reputation
   applications are defined as follows:

   RATER:  The identity of the entity providing the reputation
      information, generally expressed as a DNS domain name.

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft            Reputation Media Type             January 2012

   ASSERTION:  A keyword indicating the specific assertion or claim
      being rated.  In the absence of an "app" parameter, the reputon
      can only indicate generic goodness, with the default assertion
      "IS-GOOD," but each application is expected to define additional
      ASSERTIONs.

   RATED:  The identity of the entity being rated.

   RATING:  The overall rating score for that entity, expressed as a
      floating-point number between 0.0 and 1.0 inclusive.  See
      Section 4 for discussion.

   The following are OPTIONAL for all applications, to be used in
   contexts where they are appropriate:

   CONFIDENCE:  The level of confidence the reputation provider has in
      the value presented being accurate, expressed as a floating-point
      number between 0.0 and 1.0 inclusive.

   EXTENSION:  Contains application-specific extension data.  It MUST
      NOT be present unless the reputon was introduced using the "app"
      parameter to identify a specific reputation application.  Valid
      values are established by registration of application-specific
      extensions with IANA (see Section 5.2).

   RATER-AUTHENTICITY:  The level of confidence in that identity being
      genuine, expressed as a floating-point number between 0.0 and 1.0
      inclusive.

   SAMPLE-SIZE:  The number of data points used to compute that score,
      possibly an approximation.  Expressed as an unsigned 64-bit
      integer.  The units are deliberately not specified, since not all
      reputation service providers will collect data the same way.
      Consumers will need to determine out-of-band the units being
      reported and apply this value accordingly within their local
      policies.

   UPDATED:  A timestamp indicating when this value was generated.
      Expressed as the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 00:00
      UTC.

   A particular application that registers itself with IANA MAY also
   define extension attribute/value pairs beyond these standard ones.

   Thus, the following simple example (using simple text rather than XML
   for brevity):

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft            Reputation Media Type             January 2012

         Content-type: application/reputon

         RATER: RatingsRUs.example.com
         RATER-AUTHENTICITY: 1.0
         ASSERTION: IS-GOOD
         RATED: Alex Rodriguez
         RATING: 0.99
         SAMPLE-SIZE: 50000

   ...indicates we are absolutely sure (1.0) that the entity
   "RatingsRUs.example.com" consolidated 50000 data points (perhaps from
   everyone in Yankee Stadium) and concluded that Alex Rodriguez is very
   very good (0.99) at something.  It doesn't tell us what he's good at,
   and while it might be playing baseball, it could just as well be
   paying his taxes on time.

   A more sophisticated usage would define a baseball application with a
   vocabulary of specific assertions, so that this example:

         Content-type: application/reputon; app="baseball"

         RATER: baseball-reference.example.com
         RATER-AUTHENTICITY: 1.0
         ASSERTION: HITS-FOR-POWER
         RATED: Alex Rodriguez
         RATING: 0.99
         SAMPLE-SIZE: 50000

   ...would indicate that 50000 fans polled by the entity baseball-
   reference.example.com rate A-Rod very highly in hitting for power,
   whereas this example:

         Content-type: application/reputon; app="baseball"

         RATER: baseball-reference.example.com
         RATER-AUTHENTICITY: 1.0
         ASSERTION: CLUTCH-HITTER
         RATED: Alex Rodriguez
         RATING: 0.4
         SAMPLE-SIZE: 50000

   ...would indicate that a similar poll indicated a somewhat weaker
   consensus that A-Rod tends to choke in critical baseball situations.

   In practice, most usage of reputons is expected to make use of the
   "app" parameter to target an application-specific set of assertions.

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft            Reputation Media Type             January 2012

3.1.  XML Schema

   The following XML schema describes the format of the reply:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?%gt;
    <xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

    <!-- definition of local types -->
    <xs:simpleType name="exttype">
     <xs:restriction base="xs:token">
      <xs:pattern value="\w+(-\w*)*:\s?[\w\p{P}]+"/>
     <xs:/restriction>
    <xs:/simpleType>

    <!-- definition of simple elements -->
    <xs:element name="rater" type="xs:token"/>
    <xs:element name="rater-authenticity" type="xs:decimal"/>
    <xs:element name="assertion" type="xs:token"/>
    <xs:element name="extension" type="exttype"/>
    <xs:element name="rated" type="xs:token"/>
    <xs:element name="rating" type="xs:decimal"/>
    <xs:element name="confidence" type="xs:decimal"/>
    <xs:element name="sample-size" type="xs:positiveInteger"/>
    <xs:element name="updated" type="xs:positiveInteger"/>

    <!-- definition of complex elements -->
    <xs:complexType name="assertiontype">
     <xs:sequence>
      <xs:element ref="rater" minOccurs="1"/>
      <xs:element ref="rater-authenticity" minOccurs="1"/>
      <xs:element ref="assertion" minOccurs="1"/>
      <xs:element ref="extension"/>
      <xs:element ref="rated" minOccurs="1"/>
      <xs:element ref="rating" minOccurs="1"/>
      <xs:element ref="confidence" minOccurs="1"/>
      <xs:element ref="sample-size" minOccurs="1"/>
      <xs:element ref="updated" minOccurs="1"/>
     <xs:/sequence>
    <xs:/complexType>

    <xs:complexType name="reporttype">
     <xs:sequence>
      <xs:element name="reputon" type="assertiontype"
                     maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="1"/>
     <xs:/sequence>
    <xs:/complexType>

    <xs:element name="reputation" type="reporttype"/>

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft            Reputation Media Type             January 2012

   </xs:schema>

3.2.  Example Reply

   The following is an example reputon generated using this schema,
   including the media type definition line:

     Content-Type: application/reputon; app="email"

     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII"?>

     <reputation>
      <reputon>
       <rater>rep.example.net</rater>
       <rater-authenticity>0.95</rater-authenticity>
       <assertion>SENDS-SPAM</assertion>
       <extension>IDENTITY: DKIM</extension>
       <rated>example.com</rated>
       <rating>0.0012</rating>
       <sample-size>16938213</sample-size>
       <updated>1317795852</updated>
      </reputon>
     </reputation>

   Here, reputation agent "rep.example.net" is asserting within the
   context of email that "example.com" appears to send spam 1.2% of the
   time, based on just short of 17 million messages analyzed or reported
   to date.  The identity "example.com", the subject of the query, is
   extracted from the analyzed messages using the [DKIM] "d=" parameter
   for messages where signatures validate.  The reputation agent is 95%
   confident of this result.  (See [I-D.REPUTE-EMAIL-IDENTIFIERS] for
   details about the registered email identifiers vocabulary.)

4.  Scores

   The score presented as the value in the RATING parameter appears as a
   floating point value between 0.0 and 1.0 inclusive.  The intent is
   that the definition of an assertion within an application will
   declare what the anchor values 0.0 and 1.0 specifically mean.
   Generally speaking, 1.0 implies full agreement with the assertion,
   while 0.0 indicates no support for the assertion.

   The definition will also specify the type of scale in use when
   generating scores, to which all reputation service providers for that
   application space must adhere.  This will allow a client to change
   which reputation service provider is being queried for a given
   without having to learn through some out-of-band method what the new

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft            Reputation Media Type             January 2012

   provider's values mean.  For example, a registration might state that
   ratings are linear, which would mean a score of "x" is twice as
   strong as a value of "x/2".

5.  IANA Considerations

   This memo presents two actions for IANA, namely the creation of the
   new media type "application/reputon" and the creation of a registry
   for reputation application types.  Another memo in this series
   creates an initial registry entry for the latter.

5.1.  application/reputon Media Type Registration

   This section provides the media type registration application from
   [MIME-REG] for processing by IANA:

   To:  ietf-types@iana.org

   Subject:  Registration of media type application/reputon

   Type name:  application

   Subtype name:  reputon

   Required parameters:  none

   Optional parameters:

      app:  Names the reputation application in use within the reputon,
         which defines the valid assertions and any extensions that may
         also be valid (i.e., the vocabulary) for that application.
         These MUST be registered with IANA.

   Encoding considerations:  "7bit" encoding is sufficient and MUST be
      used to maintain readability when viewed by non-MIME mail readers.

   Security considerations:  See Section 6 of [this document].

   Interoperability considerations:  Implementers MUST ignore any "app"
      values, attribute/value pairs, or vocabulary items they do not
      support.

   Published specification:  [this document]

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft            Reputation Media Type             January 2012

   Applications that use this media type:  Any application that wishes
      to query a service that provides reputation data using the "long
      form" defined in [I-D.REPUTE-QUERY-HTTP].  The example application
      is one that provides reputation expressions about DNS domain names
      found in email messages.

   Additional information:  The value of the "app" parameter MUST also
      be registered with IANA.

   Person and email address to contact for further information:

         Nathaniel Borenstein <nps@guppylake.com>

         Murray S. Kucherawy <msk@cloudmark.com>

   Intended usage:  COMMON

   Author:

         Nathaniel Borenstein

         Murray S. Kucherawy

   Change controller:  IESG

5.2.  Reputation Applications Registry

   IANA is requested to create the "Reputation Applications" registry.
   This registry will contain names of applications used with the
   application/reputon media type, as defined by this memo.

   New registrations or updates MUST be published in accordance with the
   "Specification Required" guidelines as described in
   [IANA-CONSIDERATIONS].

   New registrations and updates MUST contain the following information:

   1.  Name of the application being registered or updated

   2.  Short description of the application (i.e., the class of entity
       about which it reports reputation data)

   3.  The document in which the application is defined

   4.  New or updated status, which MUST be one of:

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft            Reputation Media Type             January 2012

       current:  The application is in current use

       deprecated:  The application is in current use but its use is
          discouraged

       historic:  The application is no longer in current use

   5.  An optional table of query parameters that are specific to this
       application; each table entry must include:

       Name:  Name of the query parameter

       Status:  (as above)

       Description:  A short description of the purpose of this
          parameter

       Syntax:  A reference to a description of valid syntax for the
          parameter's value

       Required:  "yes" if the parameter is mandatory, "no" otherwise

   A document creating a reputation application MUST include:

   1.  A list of one or more assertions registered within this
       application; each table entry must include:

       Name:  Name of the assertion

       Description:  A short description of the assertion, with specific
          meanings for values of 0.0 and 1.0

       Scale:  A short description of the scale used in computing the
          value (see Section 4 of this memo)

6.  Security Considerations

   This memo describes security considerations introduced by the media
   type defined here.

   [TBD]

7.  References

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                [Page 10]
Internet-Draft            Reputation Media Type             January 2012

7.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.REPUTE-MODEL]
              Borenstein, N. and M. Kucherawy, "A Model for Reputation
              Interchange", I-D draft-kucherawy-reputation-model,
              June 2011.

   [I-D.REPUTE-QUERY-HTTP]
              Borenstein, N. and M. Kucherawy, "Reputation Data
              Interchange using HTTP and XML",
              I-D draft-ietf-repute-query-http, November 2011.

   [KEYWORDS]
              Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

7.2.  Informative References

   [DKIM]     Crocker, D., Ed., Hansen, T., Ed., and M. Kucherawy, Ed.,
              "DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) Signatures", RFC 6376,
              September 2011.

   [HTTP]     Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
              Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
              Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.

   [I-D.REPUTE-EMAIL-IDENTIFIERS]
              Borenstein, N. and M. Kucherawy, "A Reputation Vocabulary
              for Email Identifiers",
              I-D draft-ietf-repute-email-identifiers, November 2011.

   [IANA-CONSIDERATIONS]
              Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
              IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", RFC 5226, May 2008.

   [MIME-REG]
              Freed, N. and J. Klensin, "Media Type Specifications and
              Registration Procedures", RFC 4288, December 2005.

Appendix A.  Acknowledgments

   The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of the following to
   this specification: Frank Ellermann, Tony Hansen, Jeff Hodges, John
   Levine, David F. Skoll, and Mykyta Yevstifeyev.

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                [Page 11]
Internet-Draft            Reputation Media Type             January 2012

Appendix B.  Public Discussion

   Public discussion of this suite of memos takes place on the
   domainrep@ietf.org mailing list.  See
   https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/domainrep.

Authors' Addresses

   Nathaniel Borenstein
   Mimecast
   203 Crescent St., Suite 303
   Waltham, MA  02453
   USA

   Phone: +1 781 996 5340
   Email: nsb@guppylake.com

   Murray S. Kucherawy
   Cloudmark
   128 King St., 2nd Floor
   San Francisco, CA  94107
   USA

   Phone: +1 415 946 3800
   Email: msk@cloudmark.com

Borenstein & Kucherawy    Expires July 16, 2012                [Page 12]