At 11:53 AM 8/6/93 -0700, Doug Porter wrote:
Rob,
My motivation is to find out whether PEM is meeting our goals. To do so
first required some idea of what our primary goal is. It's privacy. RFC
1421 seems very clear on the issue: privacy has a low priority. That
isn't what most people are saying they want.
Doug
I did not reply to your poll, and it might be that others who have been
long-involved with PEM--for over seven years now, beginning in the PTF,
through the the IRTF PSRG, and now in the IETF PEM WG--also did not reply.
I did not reply because the general set of questions you are just beginning
to approach have been rather thoroughly explored over several years, and it
is fatiguing just to think about doing it again
Steve Kent's previous reply to you, and Charlie Watt's recent remarks,
stated the basic motivations that lead to the current form of PEM. His
message provides a potential starting point for further analysis if you
wish to pursue it.
Bob Jueneman's questions, conjectures, and proddings are also exhausting to
read, but they are invariably constructive and reasoned. You are not
reasoning; you are shouting that you are right and a bunch of other people,
who have thought about this a hundred times longer than you, are wrong.
Maybe that's so, but you have not presented a reasoned argument, or you
have not logically rebutted their arguments. Consequently, you are
starting to be rediculed, and you on the verge of being ignored.
In any case, the motivations for defining, developing, and standardizing
PEM did not derive from, and do not come down to, a one-time,
shoot-from-the-hip choice of which of three security services is judged
"most" important to a particular group of people at a particular point in
time. As Steve explained, we are concerned with providing fundamental
infrastructure for the long haul.
By the way, you did not answer the questions that were asked of you to let
us understand from whence you are coming: What is your involvement in PEM?
What firm or institution are you associated with, and in what capacity?
Or are you just a hobbyist or student kabitzer? To whom does the "well"
host belong?
Is it possible that your identity is not authentic? Might you be related
to or acquainted with someone named Bernstein? Is your name really Dan?
Even he can probably get a Dockmaster mailbox and not have to accept a
gratuity to do it.
Regards, -Rob-
Robert W. Shirey, The MITRE Corporation, Mail Stop Z202
7525 Colshire Dr., McLean, Virginia 22102-3481 USA
shirey(_at_)mitre(_dot_)org * tel 703-883-7210 * fax 703-883-1397