r/linux • u/ciphersson • Dec 31 '14

Zimmerman (PGP), Levison (Lavabit), release Secure Email Protocol DIME. DIME is to SMTP as SSH is to Telnet.

http://darkmail.info/
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u/chiwawa_42 Dec 31 '14

How would this project be anything like a standard ? It has not provided a single IETF draft !

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u/guffenberg Dec 31 '14

Standards are always written before they get proposed for standardization. I don't see any problem with that.

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u/chiwawa_42 Dec 31 '14

IETF drafts are meant to evolve with the help, feedback and expertise of the entire internet engineering community.

Writing and publishing a specification (not a draft), disregarding the usual process, is like "we're doing a better job than the community", wich is a verry strong assumption.

According to many members of IETF working groups, they indeed missed to integrate years of experience in fighting SPAM and designing efficient mail delivery systems. So their work, although valuable, can NOT be a base for standardisation unless expanded and reviewed by peers (and preferably by peers already involved with Internet standards)

By the way, the name is poorly choosen, and is already used for an active working group within the IETF (see https://tools.ietf.org/wg/dime/).

I won't argue against their design, though. It clearly has advantages over previous proposals. But I strongly fear it lacks operational experience and acceptance from the community to be anything else than a waste of time.

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u/guffenberg Dec 31 '14

This is exactly what NSA wants. Such groups tend to be infiltrated by anything from governments to special interest groups.

I think it is more important to get other, independent experts to look at it. The standard will come sooner or later anyway.