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draft-crocker-dmarc-author-01
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Dave Crocker
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2020-07-27
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DMARC D. Crocker
Internet-Draft Brandenburg InternetWorking
Intended status: Standards Track July 27, 2020
Expires: January 28, 2021
Author Header Field
draft-crocker-dmarc-author-01
Abstract
Internet mail defines the From: field to indicate the author of the
message's content and the Sender: field to indicate who initially
handled the message. The Sender: field is optional, if it has the
same information as the From: field. That is, when the Sender: field
is absent, the From: field has conflated semantics, as both a
handling identifier and a content creator identifier. This was not a
problem, until development of stringent protections on use of the
From: field. It has prompted Mediators, such as mailing lists, to
modify the From: field, to circumvent mail rejection caused by those
protections.
This affects end-to-end behavior of email, between the author and the
final recipients, because mail from the same author is not treated
the same, depending on what path it followed. In effect, the From:
field has become dominated by its role as a handling identifier. The
current specification augments the current use of the From: field, by
specifying the Author: field, which identifies the original author of
the message and is not subject to modification by Mediators.
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 https://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 January 28, 2021.
Crocker Expires January 28, 2021 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft DMARC July 2020
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2020 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
(https://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.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Author Header Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5.1. Registration of the Author header field . . . . . . . . . 5
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1. Introduction
Internet mail conducts asynchronous communication from an author to
one or more recipients, and is used for ongoing dialogue amongst
them. Email has a long history of serving a wide range of human uses
and styles, within that simple framework, and the mechanisms for
making email robust and safe serve that sole purpose.
Internet mail defines the From: field to indicate the author of the
message's content and the Sender: field to indicate who initially
handled the message. [Mail-Fmt] The Sender: field is optional, if it
has the same information as the From: field. That is, when the
Sender: field is absent, the From: field has conflated semantics, as
both a handling identifier and a content creator identifier. These
fields were initially defined in [RFC733] and making the redundant
Sender: field optional was a small, obvious optimization, in the days
of slower communications, expensive storage and less powerful
computers.
Crocker Expires January 28, 2021 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft DMARC July 2020
The dual semantics was not a problem, until development of stringent
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