Sender ID Rises From the Dead, Spooky Patent and All - ' Who will set the ' (
Page 2 of 2 )
standards?">
You know who else is likely to be assuaged? The FTC. After having made veiled threats to the industry to develop an authentication standard lest one be imposed on them, the FTC will be holding an E-mail Authentication Summit in D.C. Nov. 9-10. The modified Sender ID and support for it from AOL (the home team at D.C. events) are just about the only progress the industry can point to.
Its only been a little over a month, but its not like Ive seen serious efforts to move other proposals forward, with one exception. There is a separate proposed working group, IETF-Mailsig, working on a proposed standard for mail authentication through cryptographic signatures. Lots of top people believe in the cryptographic solution, if not in the short term than as an eventual successor to an IP-based solution like Sender ID.
And just because you support Sender ID doesnt mean you cant support other specs, although the administration can be cumbersome. Meng Wong diagrammed out some of the issues for a dual-Sender ID/Domain Keys implementation. Its hairy, but it can be done. I used to think that multiple implementations would be the norm, but I have to think now that administrators will want one set of records to maintain.
For insights on security coverage around the Web, check out eWEEK.com Security Center Editor Larry Seltzers Weblog.
If Sender ID muscles its way into e-mail dominance, what will opensource developers do? There was some talk of ignoring or directly challenging the patent application (there is a complicated and expensive process for this called a patent interference; OSS developers arent usually in a position to mount such an effort). Ignoring it would be a dangerous gamble, although I dont think Microsofts going after anyone unless they sue the company over it themselves (i.e., this is a defensive patent).
Personally, Im sick and tired of the lack of achievement that openness and the OSS community have gotten us. If it werent for private companies like Microsoft and Yahoo and Meng Wong personally, we wouldnt have anywhere near as many plausible solutions in sight as we do now.
In the meantime the lack of e-mail authentication and its attendant problems, including spam, phishing and worms, are turning the Internet into a house of horrors.
Security Center Editor Larry Seltzer has worked in and written about the computer industry since 1983.
Check out eWEEK.coms Security Center at http://security.eweek.com for security news, views and analysis.
Be sure to add our eWEEK.com security news feed to your RSS newsreader or My Yahoo page: 
More from Larry Seltzer
