ietf-dkim
[Top] [All Lists]

[ietf-dkim] DKIM vs. S/MIME and OpenPGP

2005-08-23 15:23:39
I thought you said that DKIM is the transmission signature and that S/MIME and OpenPGP offer the authoring signature. Did I misunderstand you?

Clearly S/MIME and OpenPGP try to provide an authoring signature. They don't seem to have been very successful, for reasons that appear to be related to (a) compatibility with legacy MUAs, (b) their verification model, and perhaps (c) competition between the two.

DKIM, or something like it, seems to incorporate new ideas for addressing (a) and (b), and might be able to succeed at being an authoring signature where the others have failed. There might still be a role for S/MIME and OpenPGP at providing a higher level of assurance than can be provided with DKIM, but I have a hard time seeing us ever get to the point that most messages will be authenticated with S/MIME or OpenPGP as we know them now.

Now maybe we could get businesses to sign their messages with S/MIME or OpenPGP and solve the phishing problem that way, but somehow I don't think they'll go for it. And for any of this to work we need widespread buyin. If the market hasn't bought into S/MIME or OpenPGP by now I don't think they're going to do so.

Keith
_______________________________________________
ietf-dkim mailing list
http://dkim.org