[ih] IETF relevance (was Memories of Flag Day?)

[Dave Crocker]

On 8/28/2023 6:59 PM, John Levine wrote:
> One could argue that DKIM originated in the IETF. It had two
> predecessors, DomainKeys and IIM. The development process more or less
> involved adding the bad ideas from IIM into DomainKeys, then taking
> them back out.

Nope. Not even close.

On two counts. First, DKIM really is a small evolution of DomainKeys, 
which itself had two versions fielded by Yahoo.  The IIM influence was, 
really, pretty minor. (I'm being kinder than you, but that doesn't mean 
I disagree about its influence.)

Second, and even more importantly, the ad hoc, private cabal we were 
part of, that did the evolution from DomainKeys to DKIM ,was explicitly 
outside of the IETF.  And that was at the IETF's request.

We first came to the IETF to pursue the integration but when they saw 
the challenges between the two constituencies, we were told to take care 
of it before doing an IETF WG.  This was almost certainly an essential 
and correct direction.


> It took several tries to get usable DNSSEC, with the version we
> use now published in 2005.

I haven't been tracking it's development in the last decade or so, but 
my impression is that its use was pretty marginal.

Small tidbit for amusement is that I was the AD over the initial DNSSec 
work, circa 1990 or 92. I had no influence over it.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
mast:@dcrocker at mastodon.social