Re: [ADMIN] Read me first!

Devin Reade (gdr@eddore.myrias.com)
Tue, 18 Aug 1998 11:27:43 -0600 (MDT)

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Joshua D. Baer wrote:
>
> On 8/18/98, Kent Landfield <kent@landfield.com> wrote:
> >
> >The problem is that the list management software is munging the body of
> >messages it is distributing. This is wrong. It should simply distribute
> >the message and if need be, append a header or footer to the begining or
> >end of the message that is clearly not a part of the message.
> >
> >**ANY** substitution of content of the submitted body is totally
> >unforgivable software wise. It is just plain broken.
>
> I'm still not sure I agree, but I don't see how this will be an issue for
> this list once the [email address] one is turned off. I think this will turn
> itself into a non-issue.

I agree that it *is* an issue. Any modification of a message body will
result in digital signatures becoming invalid. You will then have the
situation where someone sends a signed message to the list and various
email clients and/or stand-alone verifiers will be complaining that the
sender's content has been altered. It might just be a change of
punctuation, and email address, or the entire semantic content. Either
way, once a digital signature is no longer valid, you cannot trust the
content of the message.

Devin

-- 
"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat.  You pull his
tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles.  Do you understand
this?  And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they
receive them there.  The only difference is that there is no cat."
			- Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio.

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