Peter,
At 11:54 AM 12/23/94, Peter Williams wrote:
distribution system which will not even attempt to engender
interoperability with others who also claim and desire to support the
same basic PEM privacy service.
There is some chance that your assessment is right. But not much. Real
life is filled with an enormous diversity of assignment and query services.
In only the most specialized circumstances -- some are quite important,
but they still are specialized -- do we require the degree of formalization
to assignment and management authority. In a curious twist of reality, it
is very clear that the path we've been marching down, until now, has HURT
interoperability. Look at the lack of installed base. Not much
interoperability, is there?
In my most humble and ignorant opinion, I suggest we cannot afford to
sacrifice the privacy notion or the goal of actually scalable privacy.
good, solid sentiments, but I'm afraid that we need to pay close attention
to the way real infrastructures seem to get created and deployed in our
Internet. They don't happen by being touched from on high. The successful
deployments are usually from the grass roots. This requires that the
technology be defined in a way that supports such deployment and use.
I also suggest that other and more accomplished designers than are
present on the TIS/PEM team put work into the PEM design, and their
judgements are not to be just discarded just to accomodate the
All that they wish for is still possible. The current plan merely expands
the range of alternative deployments, to allow grass-roots, pair-wise
schemes ALSO.
This view and understanding is clearly represented in reality by the
fact that MIME/PEM will go one way, and PEM another within the IETF. I
possibly. but then, that's exactly what we should allow to happen. Let
each find it's natural market, as we have for various other philosophical
technical debates in the IETF.
Reimposition of a single domain hierachy would, I suggest, specialise
the policy options once again back to something doable, and usable.
Peter, I encourage you then to work on this goal. It's fine and laudable.
But please don't distract the current work from proceeding. If your
approach is superior, it will win out. It will do that in the market
place.
new certificate. This might be considered a new activity of the WG
formulated as a specific response to Dave Crockers requirements.
Ahh, so you are suggesting this for LATER consideration, rather than having
it affect the current round of working group standardization? Good. But
let me suggest, then, that we defer this topic until the documents have
been fully processed into the standards track.
d/
--------------------
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg Consulting +1 408 246 8253
675 Spruce Dr. fax: +1 408 249 6205
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
dcrocker(_at_)mordor(_dot_)stanford(_dot_)edu