Yahoo and Cisco to submit e-mail ID spec to IETF

Mon Jul 11 14:30:25 UTC 2005

On Mon, 11 Jul 2005, Fergie (Paul Ferguson) wrote:

> DKIM combines Yahoo's DomainKeys and Cisco's Internet
> Identified Mail, two e-mail authentication technologies
> developed separately, which the companies announced in
> June they would combine with the intention of licensing
> the resulting specification royalty-free throughout the
> industry.

"Roaylty-free" does not mean it can be used by everyone.
  Microsoft also promised "royalty-free" use of SID, but it
  turned out that did not extend to majority of open source
  programs (with rare exception of sendmail).

  So don't assume that something like courier-mta or postfix or exim
  would necessarily be able to include support for DKIM spec.

> p.s. Of course, this development comes on the heels of two
> other methods for e-mail authentication already published
> by the IETF as "experimental" RFC's: "Sender Policy Framework
> (SPF) for Authorizing Use of Domains in E-Mail" and Microsoft's
> "Sender ID: Authenticating E-Mail".

That is false information. They have not been published as "experimental" 
RFCs, only approved for publication. Publication may come later and yet
may not happen at all.

-- 
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
william at elan.net