Technical Summary
This document defines an extension for the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol called
RRVS, and a header field called Require-Recipient-Valid-Since, to provide a method
for senders to indicate to receivers the time when the sender last confirmed the
ownership of the target mailbox. This can be used to detect changes of mailbox
ownership, and thus prevent mail from being delivered to the wrong party.
The intended use of these facilities is on automatically generated messages that
might contain sensitive information, though it may also be useful in other applications.
Review and Consensus
The document has gone through 7 iterations, starting with the -00 draft published as
an I-D on August 18, 2013, and the most recent -05 version posted on January 10,
2014. Each iteration represents updates to the document following discussion on the
AppsArea WG discussion list (apps-discuss@ietf.org). There have been
approximately a dozen active contributors throughout the process, representing strong
engagement.
By way of example of the impact of the review by the AppsArea WG, the initial draft
focused on the addition of a header field within the message as a means to identifying
continuous ownership of the mailbox. Through the conversation, however, it became
clear that the community felt it was more appropriate to perform the validation through
the addition of an SMTP extension. At the conclusion of the discussion, the
document was updated and now includes an SMTP extension.
Personnel
The document shepherd is J. Trent Adams. The responsible Area Director is Barry Leiba.