ietf-smime
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Re: ASN.1-SIZE floating

1998-09-15 23:01:53
Peter,

The use of GeneralNames originates from this field's use in MSP.  Originally 
ORName was used, and when the MSP implementors board discussed replacing ORName 
with GeneralName, I suggested that GeneralNames be used instead for the 
following reason.

ORName is (IIRC) a SEQUENCE of an OPTIONAL Name and an OPTIONAL ORAddress.  
Whereas GeneralName is a simple CHOICE that includes Name and ORAddress as 
options.

This meant that an existing application that relied on both optional elements 
of the ORName would not be able to work with GeneralName. The only way to allow 
these applications to work would be to use GeneralNames.

So all occurences of ORName in MSP were replaced with GeneralNames.  Clearly 
the bits on the wire changed due to the tags in the GeneralName CHOICE, but the 
semantics for previous ORName functionality were retained.

I agree with you that for S/MIME in the pure Internet community GeneralName 
should be acceptable, but CMS and ESS go way beyond S/MIME.  They are being 
implemented in X.400 environments and full support for ORName fields is 
therefore necessary, IMO.

Darren

Darren Harter
CASM Programme Office
CESG
dharter(_at_)cesg(_dot_)gov(_dot_)uk

Peter Gutmann <pgut001(_at_)cs(_dot_)aucKland(_dot_)ac(_dot_)nz> 09/16/98 
09:49am >>>
Since GeneralNames is already a SEQUENCE SIZE (1...someone-elses-MAX) OF 
GeneralName, shouldn't these fields be GeneralName (without the 's')?  
Alternatively, just use GeneralNames (without the SEQUENCE OF), since it's 
already defined elsewhere.  This problem (using GeneralNames instead of 
GeneralName) occurs in various other places as well...
 
While I'm commenting on MLReceiptPolicy, the tagging on the NULL isn't 
necessary, since it's distinct from the two SEQUENCEs - all you need is [0] 
and [1] to distinguish the SEQUENCEs.
 
Peter.
 



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