Subject: #1310 Resolution "Approved" header field description

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:50:18 -0700

Current text of section:

3.2.9.  Approved

   The Approved header field indicates the mailing addresses (and
   possibly the full names) of the persons or entities approving the
   article for posting.  Its principal uses are in moderated articles
   and in group control messages [I-D.ietf-usefor-usepro].

   approved        =  "Approved:" SP mailbox-list CRLF

   Each mailbox contained in the Approved header field MUST be that of
   one of the person(s) or entity(ies) in question, and one of those
   mailboxes MUST be that of the actual sender of the article.  Note
   that this standard does not provide any means to enforce or verify
   this requirement, but future extensions or standards may provide such
   a facility (e.g. digitial signatures).

Suggested resolution:

Delete the paragraph starting "Each mailbox...."

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 14:01:38 -0700

> Delete the paragraph starting "Each mailbox...."

Agreed.

We're going to get real security here, if we ever do manage to deploy
something other than PGPMoose, by adding a digital signature.  At the
point that such a thing exists, the Approved header will be irrelevant for
sites that can verify the digital signature and we can deal with
verification of identity as part of developing that signature protocol.
In the meantime, changes to Approved that still don't add real security
aren't a step in the right direction; the right direction will involve
doing something completely different.

-- 
Russ Allbery ([email-masked])             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 22:03:44 GMT

>Delete the paragraph starting "Each mailbox...."

Disagree, for reasons stated in my reply to Russ. But some intermediate
wording should be possible.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: [email-masked]      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5