Forwarded Comments from Chris Newman

Note: forwarded message attached.

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I just read your draft.  You may forward these comments to the msgtrack
list, but I don't have time to follow this work closely.

I'm dubious of the requirement to know the path the message took.  The
primary need for this is to find out where the message _is_.  Now it may
be easy to also supply path information, but it shouldn't be a design
goal, IMHO.

Your security proposal has a flaw -- if you use a secret, you should use
HMAC (RFC 2104) so:

A = HMAC(message ID + time stamp, secret)
B = H(A)

I also think you could do much better while still only using hash-based

Restarting the Message Tracking working group

I have been asked by Keith Moore and Patrik Faltstrom to take over as 
working group chair for the message tracking working group.   To kick that
off I am sending a series of messages that deal with administative issues 
for the working group and some focus bits to get the discussion going 
again.    I tried to break each of the major things into a separate 
message so that separate (and hopefully focused) threads can develop on 
each of them.   No pun intended 

Cheers.

---  
Steve Hole                           
Execmail Inc.
Mailto:Steve.Hole <at> execmail.com 
Phone: 780-424-4922

A quick review of the charter

This is the text from the charter specifying what work is to be done.   
This is simply provided for review by the working group to make sure that 
subsequent discussions are focused on the stated goals for the working 
group.

---
Description of Working Group:

The Message Tracking Working Group will design a diagnostic protocol for
a message originator to request information about the submission,
transport, and delivery of a message regardless of its delivery status.

The group will produce two standards track documents: a message tracking
model document and a protocol document. The model will state how message
tracking is enabled, identify the entities involved, define how and when
message tracking requests are issued and answered, define approaches for
inter-domain message tracking, and address security issues. The
submission, transport, and delivery of RFC 822bis messages will be
tracked from the time such messages enter the messaging network up until
the time they are discharged (e.g. to an IMAP server, to an end-user's
mailbox, or a proprietary mail system).

---

I don't personally see any reasons to change this.   Changing it at all 
would be very difficult and require review by the IESG.   

---  
Steve Hole                           

Proposed schedule changes

Following is a change to the schedule proposed in the original charter.   
Beyond simply pushing the dates back, I also made some changes to the 
ordering of events.   Changes were based on hallway discussion held in 
Minneapolis.    If I don't hear anything back on this issue within a week 
I will submit the new schedule to the AD's for approval and update to the 
existing charter.

Goals and Milestones as represented in current charter:

Nov 98 - Post an Internet Draft of the message tracking model
Nov 98 - Post revised draft of message tracking model
Dec 98 - Meet at Orlando IETF to discuss I-Ds
Jan 99 - Post final draft of model, post Internet Draft of protocol
Feb 99 - Post revised draft of protocol
Mar 99 - Meet at 44th IETF
May 99 - Post final draft of protocol

Proposed new Goals and Milestones:

Jun 1998 - Post initial ID defining message tracking model
Jul 1998 - Meet at Oslo IETF to discuss model ID
Aug 1998 - Post revised ID defining message tracking model
Sep 1999 - Post initial ID defining message tracking protocol
Nov 1999 - Meet at Washington IETF to discuss model and protocol IDs
Feb 2000 - Post final ID defining message tracking model
Feb 2000 - Post revised ID defining message tracking protocol
Mar 2000 - Meet at Adelaide IETF to discuss protocol ID
May 2000 - Post final ID defining message tracking protocol

Cheers.

Model document authors

The following message reflects the fact that I don't really know some of 
the original folks in this working group.   I apologize for not knowing 
first names and such.   I am starting this bit as if I know nothing about 
any of the folks involved -- which is almost true.

The first deliverable for the working group is document that describes the
architectural model for a messaging tracking system.    A document has 
been created by the original core participants in the working group:

G. Jones [TomorrowSys <at> yahoo.com]
B. Ernst [bruce_ernst <at> lotus.ssw.com]
G. Vaudreuil [gregv <at> ons.octel.com]

An (updated I believe) draft has recently been submitted by G. Jones which
reflects the work that was done earlier in the working group.   It is not 
clear that all of the original authors are still participating in the 
working group.   If possible I would like to hear from the authors and/or 
designated replacements.   In Minneapolis, Tony Hansen from ATT and Ken 
Lin from Lotus volunteered to work as document editors.  My understanding 
is that Ken Lin is the designated replacement for B. Ernst from Lotus.

Two issues:

1.   Could the various authors listed on the draft please contact me with 
new email addresses and an indication on their willingness to continue.

2.   We seem to have lots of folks who want to participate in the 
authoring of the model document.    I would really like to see one 
chief-in-charge author who is on the hook for delivering the document.   
Others can contribute and share the by-line if that is important but I 

Fwd: thoughts on message tracking models

This message from Tony Hansen nicely summarizes some of the hallway 
discussion in Minneapolis.   Note that the conversation resulted from 
queries at the general apps area meeting about the status of message 
tracking, where it was going etc.   There are many participants who were 
not present and this certainly goes over some things that have been 
discussed already (presumably).

I would like to take the approach that we are hitting the "reset" button 
on the working group.   As such, this and the draft serve as a basis point
for discussion on the model.  If we find that we have good concensus on 
the model, then this should go quickly.   As I don't have good evidence 
either way, I'll presume that we need to review everything and make sure 
that we are in good standing before moving on.

I'll post my own thoughts on this later this evening.

Cheers.

--- Begin Forwarded Message ---

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 22:40:22 -0500
From: Tony Hansen <tony <at> att.com>
Subject: thoughts on message tracking models
Sender: Tony Hansen <tony <at> att.com>
To: Steve.Hole <at> execmail.com, Ken_Lin <at> lotus.com
Reply-To: Tony Hansen <tony <at> att.com>
Message-ID: <36F075A6.6D66A13 <at> att.com>

I wanted to capture some of our conversations regarding message tracking

Re: Model document authors

You are correct, Bruce Ernst will no longer be participating.  I will be
continuing in his absence.