Dear PEM-developers,
I am a Japanese researcher at Tokai university (moved from Fujitsu
Labs. since last April) and am very curious about what was
discussed at IETF held in Toronto. Is anyone so kind enough to
answer the following questions on PEM.
Q1. Has the IPRA already established? If it is developed,
when it will be available?
Q2. Why do the current PEM RFCs define only three modes,
MIC-ONLY, MIC-CLEAR, and ENCRYPTED? Why not ENCRYPTED-ONLY?
(I believe it would be useful for anonymous PEM sending, e.g. voting.)
Q3. Does certificate remains OSI X.509 form?
We WIDE security-WG have been developed FJPEM system which
adopts a hybrid certificate containing both DN and DNS names,
and WHOIS certificate distribution servers for looking up
unknown certificates. We see it some ad hoc approach,
but no other way.
Q4. How many CAs are available in the world? Who does maintain
the CAs hierarchy?
I heard in Europe an independent CA tree is structured. Also in Japan,
we have a trial WIDE-CA, though it has only 300 users.
Q5. RSA cryptsystem is now patented only in the U.S.
Is it possible PK Partner begin to license it even
in other country in future?
Many people in Japan agree that PEM is needed for
the Internet commercial use. They are anxious about the patent issue.
% I hope the PEM meeting will be fruitful. Thanks in advance.
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% Hiroaki Kikuchi, Tokai Univ. Dept. of Electrical Engineering
% Tel: +81-463-58-1211 Ext. 4025, Fax: +81-463-58-1812
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