I believe that all of the discussion over the past almost 2 weeks has
identified 3 technical issues, to which I would like to add one, making
4. One refers to the Security Multiparts document and 3 refer to the
PEM/MIME document.
I'm going to state the 4 technical issues here. I'm then going to send
a separate note for each issue to this mailing list and assert a working
group position. If you disagree with the position you MUST send a note
to the pem-dev mailing list with an explanation of why you think the
position is incorrect. NOTE, UNAMINIMITY IS NOT REQUIRED; ONLY ROUGH
CONSENSUS. So, if you disagree with a position or agree with someone
else's disagreement, YOU MUST SAY SO.
In order that the documents may be revised in a timely fashion and then
submitted to the Working Group Chair, Steve Kent, for a last call, there
will be a 48 hour timeout on sending a message of disagreement.
If I've overlooked a technical issue please send me a note I'll take
care of it right away.
I sent my previous note prior to receiving this. At this point my primary
concern is the impact the proposed standards will have on the evolving
national/international public key infrastructure. I would prefer to go back to
the standard X.509 certificate structure, using used-signed (self-CA)
certificates as necessary until the full blown CA infrastructure can be
deployed.
I also think that the time is ripe to incorporate the version 3 X.509
certificate, so that it will give us the flexibility to move forward on these
and other potential new issues.
I'll leave the other issues to those who have a more in-depth understanding of
all of the MIME complexities.
Bob
--------------------------------
Robert R. Jueneman
Staff Scientist
Wireless and Secure Systems Laboratory
GTE Laboratories
40 Sylvan Road
Waltham, MA 02254
Internet: Jueneman(_at_)gte(_dot_)com
FAX: 1-617-466-2603
Voice: 1-617-466-2820