Subject: Re: SMTP Use Cases

From: jfcm <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 16:28:35 +0100

Sorry for the typo; it was not so important and I suppose context was explicit.
"
As you know I think that a front-end program on an MTA can (_not_) be 
called an OPES....
"

I will add another important service: mail anonymizing. This is a feature 
provided in some mailing list. The problem is that it only anonimizes the 
header. If the mail is a reply-to, the name of the replier is often in the 
return formula "at 16:24 etc. John Doe etc".

There are many applications, but this feature is for example important in 
"dynamic online voting" - wich is probably the only secure simple and cheap 
online voting solution I know: the ballots are sent to voters (with a 
ballot ID) who reply in anonymous way to the watchdogs mailing list, and 
may be to the voters list but without the votes.

The witnessed times of vote and time/ballot ID checking (real time or at 
the end) by the voters themsleves prevent tempering. Result is the release 
by the watchdogs of the ballots they received which should all be the same. 
Everyone has then all the ballots. This method permits to run a vote with 
everyone involved being under suspicion (the best is that watchdogs are for 
example the candidates - so there is no suspicion of collusion). The only 
problem is that a trusted third party introduces the sent ballots ID and 
anonymizes the received ballots. Every existing solution will be under 
suspicion, and every server related solution may have hidden archives.

Not OPES dedicated services (possibly two: one for inserting IDs, one for 
anonymizing) independent from the concerned voting college.
jfc

---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 14:31:10 -0700 (MST)

Martin,

 	Are you collecting these cases somewhere? Looks like we 
already have quite a few, together with recent jfcm additions. 
However, many lack details. Is now a good time to decide what to do 
with them? I recall we were thinking about either including them in 
SMTP Adaptations draft or documenting them separately...

Alex.

On Sat, 13 Nov 2004, jfcm wrote:

> I will add another important service: mail anonymizing.

---

From: jfcm <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 03:10:56 +0100

Other features for developping countries (low bandwidth capacity) :

1. resuming interrupted sending. Probably several cases and ways.
2. virtual transfers. When the same mail is sent to several recipients, the 
first copy could be transfered with meta data defining the others to 
rebuild on the arriving MTA.
3. compression during transfer

Another which may no please is a pay-filtering or other filtering based 
upon sending/receiving destination, for pre-classing the mails for examples.

jfc

---

From: Markus Hofmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 08:34:43 -0500

Our proposed charter includes a delivery for "SMTP Use Cases 
Document", so we've to document the use cases separately.

Martin and Abbie already indicated to be willing to work on 
thisdocument - other volunteers welcome, of course.

Martin, Abbie - could you please start collecting all the use cases 
into a "SMTP USe Cases Draft" and start sharing the evolving document 
with the group?

Thanks,
   Markus

Alex Rousskov wrote:
> 
> Martin,
> 
>     Are you collecting these cases somewhere? Looks like we already have 
> quite a few, together with recent jfcm additions. However, many lack 
> details. Is now a good time to decide what to do with them? I recall we 
> were thinking about either including them in SMTP Adaptations draft or 
> documenting them separately...
> 
> Alex.
> 
>

---

From: Tony Finch <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:26:40 +0000

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004, jfcm wrote:

> first copy could be transfered with meta data defining the others to rebuild
> on the arriving MTA.

SMTP already provides this.

Tony.
-- 
f.a.n.finch  <[email-masked]>  http://dotat.at/
MALIN HEBRIDES: NORTHEAST 4 OR 5 INCREASING 6. RAIN LATER. GOOD BECOMING
MODERATE.

---

From: jfcm <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 20:43:04 +0100

May I suggest to use a Wiki? The work that James Seng made for the attempt 
to define the new generation mail in using a wiki was quite good to collect 
and sort suggestions - and could also give some application ideas?
http://james.seng.cc/wiki/wiki.cgi?Mail-NG

jfc

At 14:34 14/11/2004, Markus Hofmann wrote:
>Our proposed charter includes a delivery for "SMTP Use Cases Document", so 
>we've to document the use cases separately.
>Martin and Abbie already indicated to be willing to work on this document 
>- other volunteers welcome, of course.
>Martin, Abbie - could you please start collecting all the use cases into a 
>"SMTP USe Cases Draft" and start sharing the evolving document with the group?

---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 13:10:23 -0700 (MST)

I agree that wikis can be good for collecting ideas. On the other 
hand, we need a draft as a result. Thus, a wiki would be a temporary 
or intermediate thing. If we have enough ideas to sketch a draft, we 
might as well do that without the overheads. Also, AFAIK, IETF does 
not provide wiki space for WGs yet.

I guess it would be up to draft authors (Martin and Abbie) to agree on 
whether/how to set one up and, if a wiki is established, how to 
transfer wiki entries into the draft.

Alex.

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004, jfcm wrote:

>
> May I suggest to use a Wiki? The work that James Seng made for the attempt to 
> define the new generation mail in using a wiki was quite good to collect and 
> sort suggestions - and could also give some application ideas?
>> Martin and Abbie already indicated to be willing to work on this document - 
>> other volunteers welcome, of course.

---

From: jfcm <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:09:33 +0100

At 21:10 14/11/2004, Alex Rousskov wrote:
>whether/how to set one up and, if a wiki is established, how to transfer 
>wiki entries into the draft.

The online toof for Draft formating works well enough. Not exactly direct 
pasting (xml tags are to be entered manually, but not complex and quick 
enough). I can do that (no Frenglish needed:-), pasting from the wiki and 
entering the adopted format.
jfc

---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:27:56 -0700 (MST)

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004, jfcm wrote:

> The online toof for Draft formating works well enough. Not exactly 
> direct pasting (xml tags are to be entered manually, but not complex 
> and quick enough). I can do that (no Frenglish needed:-), pasting 
> from the wiki and entering the adopted format.

It is not cut-and-pasting that is difficult and both Martin and Abbie 
have been using xml2rfc. The challenge is to keep wiki pages (authored 
by many without much coordination) in sync with the draft (authored by 
two).

Based on my limited experience with wikis, I would either do a 
temporary wiki page and then freeze it and go into draft mode OR 
bypass the wiki altogether since we have many cases already. YMMV. 
Authors should decide what works best for them, IMO.

Alex.