From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/81161 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Russ Allbery Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: Repost: Time to revisit the message id generation algorithm? Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:29:44 -0800 Organization: The Eyrie Message-ID: <87zkd2yvx3.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1328139018 3037 80.91.229.3 (1 Feb 2012 23:30:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 23:30:18 +0000 (UTC) To: ding@gnus.org Original-X-From: ding-owner+M29442@lists.math.uh.edu Thu Feb 02 00:30:18 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ding-account@gmane.org Original-Received: from util0.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.18]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Rsjcy-0005hr-Ph for ding-account@gmane.org; Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:30:13 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.math.uh.edu) by util0.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Rsjcq-0000Nm-N4; Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:30:04 -0600 Original-Received: from mx2.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.33]) by util0.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Rsjcp-0000Nc-MN for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:30:03 -0600 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.231.51]) by mx2.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1Rsjcf-0007f5-E4 for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:30:03 -0600 Original-Received: from smtp1.stanford.edu ([171.67.219.81] helo=smtp.stanford.edu) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1Rsjcd-0004tw-FP for ding@gnus.org; Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:29:51 +0100 Original-Received: from smtp.stanford.edu (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by localhost (Postfix) with SMTP id 67C10470761 for ; Wed, 1 Feb 2012 15:29:45 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from windlord.stanford.edu (windlord.Stanford.EDU [171.67.225.134]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.stanford.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPS id CCB94470116 for ; Wed, 1 Feb 2012 15:29:44 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: by windlord.stanford.edu (Postfix, from userid 1000) id A7C722F87B; Wed, 1 Feb 2012 15:29:44 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: (Johann Oskarsson's message of "Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:18:20 +0000") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.3 (gnu/linux) X-Spam-Score: -2.9 (--) List-ID: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:81161 Archived-At: "Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson" writes: > Reposting this here from gnu.emacs.gnus: > There are two issues I have with the message id generation algorithm; > the (message-unique-id) function. > 1) It bleeds information. This is an issue for those who use TOR or > other anynomizers. > 2) It may not be unique (anymore). There is some discussion of the problems of generating message IDs at: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-usefor-message-id-01 although it doesn't touch on the privacy issues. The recommended algorithm there is to use a message ID LHS generated from the local timestamp with as much precision as possible, followed by some sort of hopefully unique local data. The suggestion in that draft that I like the best (although it's a bit slow) is to take a hash of the message to get the additional unique data, although using a pseudorandom number generator isn't a bad idea. One thing that I'd like to request, though, is that if this changes it would be nice to have an option to keep the current message ID behavior or something like it. One of the really neat tricks that the current behavior allows, provided that one isn't worried about the privacy issues, is to automatically raise score on any message that is a reply to one of your messages, since your messages are uniquely identifiable from the message ID. I use that technique *heavily*. -- Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)