ietf-smime
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Re: [smime] Key lookup service via draft-bhjl-x509-srv-00

2016-03-24 10:29:02
My advice is to keep it as simple as possible.  MUAs interact directly with 
users, so it should be MUAs that provide assurance, not mail providers.  This 
relieves the provider from having to worry about it, and users can opt in or 
out at will using any mail provider or key infrastructure they choose (up to 
and including roll-your-own).

I wouldn't disagree, but I would also point out that there are a lot of people who are eager to add a per-domain key lookup to their mail service. There are proposals in DANE to publish PGP and S/MIME keys directly in the DNS which are a bad idea for various reasons, but I don't see any reason that a domain operator shouldn't be able to offer a key server if it wants. Scott Rose at NIST and Richard Lau at ICANN have expressed interest in the DANE versions, so I'd like to give them an option that could work.

My main concern would be to keep it crystal clear that the key server semantics are "foo.com asserts this is the key for bob(_at_)foo(_dot_)com" rather than "this is the key for bob(_at_)foo(_dot_)com".

Regards,
John Levine, johnl(_at_)taugh(_dot_)com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
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