At 12:13 AM 11/25/1997 GMT, Adam Back wrote:
It seems to me that the debate over CMR and it's more secure
alternatives could easily be deferred to OpenPGPv2 with no
compatibility issues.
The way that CMR/ARR field is encoded in the draft is that it is a
signature subpacket type. Signature subpacket types are extensible;
that is an implementation already has a defined method to safely
ignore subpackets it does not understand. This means that no one will
experience compatibility problems if the experimental CMR subpacket is
only implemented by PGP Inc.
I agree.
We should probably mark Subpacket Type 10 as "reserved" or something.
Figuring out the semantics of the Critical Bit is going to be more complex.
- it would allow more time for PGP Inc to get feed-back on this
controversial experimental feature from their customers as to how
CMR performs functionally in practice (I am expecting there will
be complaints about the lack of ergonomic recovery from forgotten
passphrases -- all files have to be re-encrypted), how the security
of the system holds up (how well companies are managing very
sensitive CMR master keys), and to gauge customers acceptance of the
feature politically.
- it will give time for more secure competing proposals (such as local
escrow) to be developed for recovery from forgotten passphrases.
Yeah, Stealth is going to take some discussion, and OPv2 is probably
a good venue for it.
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, stewarts(_at_)ix(_dot_)netcom(_dot_)com
Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639