On Thu, 17 Apr 1997, Blake Ramsdell wrote:
Yes, I understand that two *particular* implementations can
interoperate. But can *any* two implementations interoperate? No.
Because of US export regulation, you can't possibly answer that question
yes, because there will be a vendor that does not implement the
export-only algorithm unless that algorithm is labeled MUST.
It would be ridiculous for me to say that you had no interoperability at
all -- there is always "identity" interoperability with your own product
(I hope!). I'm sorry if my language wasn't precise. Of course, I may
have been trying to be ridiculous also -- it happens :).
I still don't agree with you. If the IETF specifies (say) Triple-DES as a
MUST algorithm, then *any* two implementations would be able to
interoperate. It's just not the case that there would be any US
exportable implementations of S/MIME. Thus, there would be no reason for
a sending implementation to use an export-only algorithm.
Raph