At 08:34 AM 3/27/98 -0500, John Pawling wrote:
I respectfully disagree with your comments. The X.411 securityLabel syntax
was included in ESS to maximize the re-use of existing software. It was not
included in ESS to provide direct bits-on-the-wire compatibility with
existing non-CMS security protocols.
This is the crux of the design decision. ESS is designed to standardize the
inclusion of advanced new features in S/MIME, not to be bits-on-the-wire
compatible with non-Internet formats which no longer make sense. I think
you'll have to agree: a privacy mark that cannont include an Internet mail
address (due to the lack of '@' in PrintableString) makes no sense in an
Internet protocol.
Where we can, we make it easy for software to create messages that are
easily processable into older protocols. This has always been an important
part of all the S/MIME work, and particularly the ESS work. Thus, we offer
a choice for ESSPrivacyMark. If we didn't care about making life easier for
those transitioning from older protocols, there would be no choice, just a
UTF8 string.
--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium