ietf-smime
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RE: Simplifying S/MIME v3

1997-10-14 06:54:21
All,

I believe that Blake makes a good point that the S/MIME specs specify how to
use PKCS #7 to protect MIME-encapsulated data.  There needs to be separate
specs that specify how to use PKCS #7 to protect non-MIME-encapsulated data.  

================================
John Pawling   
jsp(_at_)jgvandyke(_dot_)com                             
J.G. Van Dyke & Associates, Inc.           
================================


At 12:52 PM 10/9/97 -0700, Blake Ramsdell wrote:
On Thursday, October 09, 1997 10:09 AM, Peter Williams
[SMTP:peter(_at_)verisign(_dot_)com] wrote:
These functions are not "current" in the sort of emailish privacy-centric
notion of S/MIME that we have around in the market at the current time.
Where
S/MIME is used in http or SSL however, it is more than likely that should a
party
define a custom SSL3 record-layer protocol (as they are entitlted) in which
the current keys of the state/connection are used, then the S/MIME
mechanisms
(including the above) may well be used as the message formats. Why invent a
new
one, one might ask.

I don't disagree with the argument that these constructs serve a purpose
in the universe.  The question is, do they serve a purpose in all of the
problem domain that we are working on (that being defined as security
services for MIME entities, regardless of transport), or are they only
useful in a subset of the problem domain (HTTP / SSL-specific
transport).  I think the answer is the latter, and so to the extent that
we would like to support these constructs, we should create a separate
draft that explains their use for that particular transport.

You may have a point about signedAndEnvelopedData (forcing the fact that
only a recipient may validate the signature), and I welcome more
discussion about that.  My gut feeling is that no one is going to care
about that particular semantic, so it boils down to implementation
complexity vs. utility.

Blake
--
Blake C. Ramsdell
Worldtalk Corporation
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