With the MIME-PEM proposal on the table and a new round of discussion
about PEM presumably about to take place, I'd like to suggest we
revise the terminology. This is really Willis Ware's suggestion, and
I think it's very much the right idea.
What's broke: The term "privacy enhanced mail" emphasizes the privacy
aspect of PEM and does not mention integrity or authentication. I
also find the use of "enhanced" a bit strange stylistically.
The fix: The acronym is useful, so working within the acronym, the
term Protected Electronic Mail (or Protected E-Mail) fits nicely.
An alternative: Jeff Schiller has commented privately that we might
think in terms of documents generally and not just mail. I don't know
how to do that elegantly, but we could use "protected electronic memo"
and still retain "PEM".
Cheers.
Steve
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