This is called PGP and S/MIME. Both are valid IETF RFC.
From an industry point of view, S/MIME seems to be the one that will survive
in the long run, because it is implemented in nearly all mail clients and
follows the certificates used in SSL/TLS which is widely adopted (IPSec to
name only one).
However, none of them is widely implemented for e-mail purposes because of
problems to build a global PKI (in short). I still haven't found a company
that will give/sell me a certificate that allows me to sign my
organisational e-mails certificates. ISOC is working on it...
Cheers.
-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Lawrence Murphy [mailto:garym(_at_)canada(_dot_)com]
Sent: Friday, 25 October 2002 11:19
To: Franck Martin
Cc: 'TOMSON ERIC'; 'ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org'; 'isdf(_at_)isoc(_dot_)org'
Subject: Re: [isdf] RE: Palladium (TCP/MS)
Isn't that PGP?