The keying question at the heart of this debate has ramifications
beyond the applications area of the IETF. even imagining that that all
Internet applications integrated multipart/security and MIME object
typing and structuring, not all layers of the IPS will.
Therefore, the real question is bigger than our WG.
The real question is "whats the key distribution protocol for the IPS?"
Ancillary questions are "do we want a single layer-independent identity
protocol" and "do we want a common authentication infrastructure", and
"do we want policy-based, domain-based security infrastructure?"
The Internet Society has its annual Symposium in the area in mid-feb,
not that coders like me get a schedule such that one could attend! ...
Anyway, many of the sessions and panels address these topics.
As many of the particpants in this debate are the same as the speakers
or panelists in that symposium, could we perhaps suspend the argument
or decision till then (allowing all works or positions to refine themselves
based on
the last 4 weeks of comment in the interim)?
There the face to face contact in that sharing framework might produce
an atmostphere of study and reflection, based on the goals for all the
subareas of the application task force, and also the bigger IPS
picture.
If there is no concensus after such an opportunity of high-bandwidth
communication and opportunity for agreement, then we just abandon the
attempt to do this task in this forum.
I hope that with the PSRG in such atendance, there long-standing
research work on the bigger architecture picture could be brought to
bear in leading the symposium to produce some outputs in concensus
building here.
Peter.