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Re: CMS Critical flag for signed attributes?

1997-12-31 16:21:38
At 03:25 PM 12/31/97 -0500, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
It seems to me we may just need a critical flag just like there is in
the X.509v3 certificate. If the critical bit is set and the client does
not understand the semantics of the attribute a client is required to
inform the user of the fact.

This sounds alright to me, but not the differences in action between PKIX
and S/MIME. In PKIX, you MUST not process a cert that has a critical
attribute you don't understand. In S/MIME, you propose that we "inform the
user", which is the handwaving we're forced to do when a signature check
fails.

If we go with this idea, the handwaving wording for what happens for failed
criticality should be identical as the handwaving wording we use for failed
signature validation. In fact, I'd like to see that wording appear only
once as the same outcome to two different bad events.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

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