Noted both Arnt's and Jim's comments! On 7 Feb 2025 17:22, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:
Mark D, EAI WG colleagues:
I don't really know the intended message or audience of this "EAI-focused Explainer Video for this UA Day and beyond", so I'm guessing at suggestions.
But if most of the thread about Dovecot seems to have been at the level of technical detail. I think it is probably out of scope for a non-technical "explainer video".
The most important message for an EAI-focused explainer video is that the EAI Self-Certification Guide provides a way for email buyers and email vendors to communicate about EAI support. EAI buyers use the Guide to understand what the levels, "Silver", "Gold", and "Platinum", mean for satisfying their EAI needs, and then specify that they want to buy email products and services with "Silver", "Gold", or "Platinum" support. EAI vendors use the Guide to certify their products as "Silver", "Gold", or "Platinum" level, then use the terms "Silver", "Gold", and "Platinum" in their marketing materials to communicate EAI support to customers.
Once buyers and sellers are using that common language to communicate about EAI support, then the technical experts on each side can wade into the details of whether SMTP AUTHENTICATE is better than LOGIN and such.
At a high level, "Silver" level means that the software can correspond with others who use globally inclusive (EAI) email addresses, but the organisation's own email addresses are limited Latin only. "Gold" level means that the organisation's own email addresses can be globally inclusive, with some configuration or non-default settings or rough edges, plus all the benefits of "Silver". "Platinum" gives all the benefits of "Gold", but using default settings and with no rough edges and with polish.
Best regards, —Jim DeLaHunt
On 2025-02-07 02:20, Seda Akbulut via UA-EAI wrote:
Hello all,
Just wanted to bring Mark’s email on top of your email box as we are finalizing the video. Last call for your feedback to the questions Mark raised below.
With thanks for all feedback!
Seda
*From: *"Mark W. Datysgeld via UA-EAI" <ua-eai@icann.org> *Reply to: *"Mark W. Datysgeld" <mark@governanceprimer.com> *Date: *29 January 2025 Wednesday at 00:06 *To: *Arnt Gulbrandsen <arnt.gulbrandsen@icann.org>, Arnt Gulbrandsen via UA-EAI <ua-eai@icann.org>, "John R. Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>, "ua-eai@icann.org" <ua-eai@icann.org> *Subject: *[UA-EAI] Re: [Ext] Re: Dovecot 2.4 released today
I am currently finishing the EAI-focusee Explainer Video for this UA Day and beyond (the technical class has already been finalized and delivered to leadership).
In case the EAI community feels that any of the data that can be generalized from this thread (and adjacent data) needs to be in that video, I just need to have it formatted in a way that works for a more general audience.
e.g..: what are the specific repeating questions that stop the clients from being certified Gold.
Let me know.
On January 28, 2025 7:16:50 PM UTC, Arnt Gulbrandsen via UA-EAI <ua-eai@icann.org> wrote:
Hi,
I may be confused, by which I mean that I definitely am confused by hope I’m not TOO confused about this particular part of the world.
The LOGIN command allows only ASCII usernames and passwords, but various forms of AUTHENTICATE allow anything and everything, independent of UTF8=ACCEPT. I like AUTHENTICATE much better than LOGIN and see Oauth and/or Passkey as the way forward for UA. (I have opinions about which is best, but in truth I’ll be happy if there’s traction on either. Anything good enough is good enough.)
Arnt
*From: *"John R. Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> *Date: *Tuesday, 28 January 2025 at 18:23 *To: *Arnt Gulbrandsen <arnt.gulbrandsen@icann.org>, Dr Ajay Data <ajay@data.in>, "ua-eai@icann.org" <ua-eai@icann.org> *Subject: *Re: [UA-EAI] Re: [Ext] Re: Dovecot 2.4 released today
On Tue, 28 Jan 2025, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote:
Dovecot allows practically everything even if you don’t enable UTF8=ACCEPT. From memory there are only two differences:
1. Dovecot won’t allow a well-behaved MTA such as Exim or Postfix to deliver mail with SMTPUTF8. Postfix has an option to override that, I’m sure there are other ways as well. I doubt that many people enable this option, or one of the other ways.
2. If a message arrives From: blå@xn--gr-zia.org, such as you might see if the message is from Exchange, then you may see xn- -gr-zia in the user interface of a mail reader, and a search for grå may or may not find the message. If UTF8=ACCEPT is enabled you should only ever see grå and searching should work reliably.
That sounds right. But the bit about ASCII usernames and passwords is
also true. I looked at the code which is quite simple.
Dovecot’s handling of unexpected Unicode is so liberal that some clients protest 😉
Arnt
From: "John R. Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
Date: Monday, 27 January 2025 at 18:18
To: Arnt Gulbrandsen <arnt.gulbrandsen@icann.org>, Dr Ajay Data <ajay@data.in>, "ua-eai@icann.org" <ua-eai@icann.org>
Subject: Re: [UA-EAI] Re: [Ext] Re: Dovecot 2.4 released today
On Mon, 27 Jan 2025, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote:
Sorry, I assumed that John’s question was about IMAP clients. I agree that there are more UA-ready mail clients in general, even if I’m a little surprised by that list. Last time I tested the ios app (Apple’s, I assume) it was unable to reply correctly, and since I’m typing this into Outlook, let’s test… nope, can’t add a Unicode address to this message, see screenshot. The previous version could do it, and OWA can too.
When I was testing EAI software a while ago, I found almost no IMAP
clients or servers that had the EAI extensions, but it hardly mattered
since they handled EAI messages and UTF-8 folder names using the regular
non-EAI methods. Dovecot, at least up to 2.3, only allows ASCII user
names and passwords (I looked at the code.) In 2.4 it should allow them
if your client turns on the extension. Any idea if it does even if you
don't?
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com<mailto:johnl@taugh.com>, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://jl.ly__;!!PtGJab4!_Btry1e7PUX8kBueTJCm7e... <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/jl.ly__;!!PtGJab4!_Btry1e7PUX8kBueTJCm7ekOnLeX0ksLCuPYAXi2tjyy2OiX7a3L7T76gEwl2jqmXZQE7FzzyALJh7NEVKAAjCw$><https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/jl.ly__;!!PtGJab4!_Btry1e7PUX8kBueTJCm7ekOnLeX0ksLCuPYAXi2tjyy2OiX7a3L7T76gEwl2jqmXZQE7FzzyALJh7NEVKAAjCw$> [jl[.]ly]
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://jl.ly__;!!PtGJab4!7V0oLyLH8xxtpQ-lPC2Aqi... <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/jl.ly__;!!PtGJab4!7V0oLyLH8xxtpQ-lPC2Aqik...> [jl[.]ly]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark W. Datysgeld from Governance Primer
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-- Mark W. Datysgeld Director at Governance Primer [governanceprimer.com <https://governanceprimer.com>] Project Lead Developer at ICANNWiki [icannwiki.org <https://icannwiki.org/>]