Steve,
1. Irrespective of all issues of civil authoriites, etc., the
mechanics of setting up and using a parallel naming structure is an
overwhelming burden. Each of us already has a user name which we
use for e-mail. I send mail to you as jueneman(_at_)gte(_dot_)com; you send
mail to me as crocker(_at_)tis(_dot_)com(_dot_) (There are some messy
technical
details that I don't want to minimize but which are subordinate to
the main point. For example, another e-mail name for you appears
to be jueneman%wotan(_at_)gte(_dot_)com, and another name for me is
crocker(_at_)happy(_dot_)tis(_dot_)com(_dot_) These can be dealt with.)
Introducing names like Stephen D. Crocker of Trusted Information
Systems has a number of consequences. The creation and maintenance
of a separate database at each site has a cost, but that's not the
reason we're having trouble. Far more important, in my opinion, is
the difficulty of building a coherent, trustable mail system. How
do we relieve the user of having to specify the intended addressee
twice, once by his DN for encryption, and separately by e-mail name
(EN hereafter) for delivery? A directory, you say? Aside from the
added burden of building the additional mechanism, what assurance
is provided that the correspondence between DN and EN is accurate?
It's this problem that has convinced me that we have a very serious
problem, not easily remedied with better user interfaces.
Suppose GTE Labs were to offer an X.500 Directory service for PEM users
that would provide a storage capability for X.509 certificates together
with their Internet mail address and perhaps some other useful
information. I have in mind a free service offered for a strictly limited
period, in order to try to jump start PEM and to determine the long-range
utility and business opportunity of such an offering.
I haven't thought about it too much, but I think it would be possible
to search the directory by the standard civil authority DN OR by the e-mail
address OR by the Soundex version of the user's surname.
Issues of access control would have to be addressed. At first, even
the users might not be able to change the information in their listing.
1. Would this be useful to the PEM community at large?
2. We could conceivably modify one of the existing public domain
DUAs to support a human-readable interface to the directory
information, and we could presumably support a Telnet access to
such a DUA, but I do not have the resources to integrate such
a DUA with a drag and drop or API interface to a mail program. Would
TIS or anyone else be interested in such an integration?
3. I like John Lowry's idea of an automatic interface between the
user's local cache and the Directory. The user should be able to
scroll or search his local cache, access it by nickname, or browse
through the X.500 directory to find who is is looking for.
Any volunters?
4. What level of assurance do you believe is necessary between the
user's DN, certificate, and his e-mail address? Who should provide
that assurance: (a) the user, (b) the user's CA, or (c) the Directory
service provider?
5. Would users be interested in storing such additional information
as their telephone number, FAX number, cellular or beeper number,
etc., as part of this trial? What other kinds of information would be
useful?
(This is NOT a committment to offer such a service, just an inquiry.
Since GTE is in part a regulated common carrier, offering such a
service might raise cross-subsidization and other MFJ issues, even if
(especially if?) the service were free. So management approval would
probably be required, and probably would involve other business units
within GTE. With luck, we might be able to finish the implementation and
get a decision in about the same time frame!)
Bob