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--></style><title>Re: [OpenID] XRI and OpenID
mailers</title></head><body>
<div><font color="#000000">>I notice that a goodly percentage of
posted emails to</font> <a href="mailto:general@openid.net"><font
color="#000000">general@openid.net</font></a><font color="#000000">
are not distributed by the openid.net pipermailer to my particular
registered mailbox. I don't know if this same phenomenon occurs for
others.</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>At first I thought the list wasn't sending me copies of messages
that already had my address in the To/cc list (which made sense, to
save bandwidth, but it was still annoying since I didn't realize
messages were posted to the list rather than addressed to me
personally). This turned out to be fixable by setting my filters to
look for the list's address in either of those two areas; previously
I'd been looking for an X-BeenThere header.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>An annoyance that requires my constant attention to fix is the
list's Reply-To (Sender) header; on at least one occasion I have not
only forgotten to add the list's address to my outgoing mail, but
missed this omission for some time thereafter.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font color="#000000">></font>applying microIDs and openIDs to
listing archive and email distribution! Prove that you are getting the
stream in a timely fashion, as are others, in an era that acknowledges
that military dis-information campaigns are rife in mainstream
media.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I'm not sure that's the exact proof we need to be worried about.
How important is it to prove that we *did* receive something? And even
if we *can* prove that X did receive something, we still can't prove
that X *read* it. (Unless we use Receipts, not to re-invent the wheel,
but even that still won't prove that X *understood* any of it. For
instance; I open your messages, Peter, and often can't understand
them, but I still need to read at least a few lines to know that it's
more XR*, of which I know nothing.) A more interesting question would
be proving that we *didn't* receive it, or, since proving a negative
can be tricky, proving that we received it *at a particular
time*.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>A bit of extra negotiation between mail servers might accomplish
that; each transmitting node must accept a datestamp from the
receiving node, (verify that it is correct and) sign it, then send it
on to the receiving node before that node will accept delivery. Each
receiving node must reject delivery if the message actually arrived
(in full) much later than the agreed-upon datestamp. These signed
datestamps could be included in the message headers, giving its
ultimate recipient the power to prove when the message was
sent/received on a per-node basis.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>This seems like it would be better implemented with an E-mail
spec than microID/openID, though. I think the main problem with
getting OpenID to play nicely with E-mail is that they're different
systems; sure, E-mail *can* be web-based, but I for one download it to
my computer. Still, until then it's stored in a way that *can* have a
web interface to it, so it's just a matter of getting all the parts to
talk to one another.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Proving that I *have* a message can be done in a fairly
straightforward manner, and even as a zero-knowledge proof; anyone
curious about it generates a random string, sends it to me, and I
append it to the message I've received before hashing them; the
problem with this is that any differences in auto-formatting
(line-wrap, type of line return, and HTML being some obvious culprits)
between mail clients will break it, and we're *still* working out the
problems with *those* differences ;)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>To prove that you're *not* getting it, you need to be able to
demonstrate that the *list* cannot prove that you *have* received it.
Because, really, *you* could just pretend to have not received
anything, and deny that you had. The list could, I suppose, refuse to
send you any further messages until you admitted to having received
the last, but then that would slow down reception of many messages,
which would normally be sent all at once. At that point you *wouldn't*
be receiving messages in a timely manner, which would defeat the
purpose ;)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>-Shade</div>
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