Re: Thoughts on Message-ID generation

["David A. Cobb" <superbiskit@home.com>]

Taking a clue from a different source, I believe the OMG - CORBA folk have
a scheme for generating unique ID's that folds your 60-bit NIC number
(which the mfgr's guarentee to be unique), the current UTC, and maybe
something else just for fun.  Now, a mail-message is clearly an
<<object>>!   So, given about a 128-bit number generated by such an
algorithm and encoding it Mod64 generates a string that isn't so long it's
impossible and enough numbers to last for a little while.

For security purposes, one might want a number including your NIC# run
through some sort of one-way hash, but that might destroy the uniqueness
property.  Some network guru, chime in here please with what damage - if
any - a bad guy could do if he knew my NIC#.  CORBA must have dealt with
the same security issues.

A "nice" feature might be putting the UTC in the most-significant
postition so that messages in message-id sequence are more or less
chronological.  The downside is that PC clocks, especially, are sometimes
pure fiction.  I have mail in my inbox now that has not been written yet
for months, if the originator's time stamp were to be believed.

I send my mail via an SMTP server at my ISP.  The ISP responds by telling
me the ID she has assigned to it.  I have no clue what her scheme is.

Kai Großjohann wrote:

> On 01 Mar 2001, Chris Shenton wrote:
>
> > I'd really like the messageId to NOT contain my host, domain, or
> > other identifying information.  The layout of my LAN systems should
> > be private, and I don't want spammers harvesting this info.
>
> The msgid does not need to be the DNS FQDN of your host.  If the host
> master of the frob.org domain tells you that you can use the right
> hand side `chris.msgid.frob.org' for your messages, and that uniquely
> identifies your host, then you can do that.
>
> Since you have your own domain, you appear to be your own host master,
> so I'm sure you can find a rhs that you can use.
>
> If you give every user their own rhs, you can completely hide the
> network structure.  And you can have your MTA bounce or drop mails
> sent to such hosts.
>
> kai
> --
> Be indiscrete.  Do it continuously.

--
David A. Cobb, The Superbiskit !
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