There was a mistake in the first version of the S/MIME FAQ (quoted above)
that
has since been fixed in the online version. It now reads:
""But MOSS has so many implementation options that it is possible for two
independent developers to come up with two MOSS mailers that will actually
_NOT_
"talk" to each other.""
...as opposed to the the suggestion from Jeff at TIS: "...impossible for two
independent..."
The S/MIME FAQ can be found on RSA's www site:
http://www.rsa.com/rsa/S-MIME/smimeqa.htm
Steve Dusse
Product Manager
RSA
A nice twist you have given to my words. I complement you for ingenuity, at
the least. Let me provide my original quote in full and give an explanation.
MOSS is designed to overcome the limitations of PEM by
handling MIME messages and being more liberal in the
hierarchy requirements. But MOSS has so many implementation
options that it is possible for two independent developers
to come up with two MOSS mailers that will actually "talk"
to each other. MOSS can be thought of as a framework rather
than a specification, and considerable work in
implementation profiling has yet to be done.
Something is wrong with the wording of the paragraph above. I expected it to
say "impossible for two independent". Where is this S/MIME FAQ? ...Jeff
I expected it to say "impossible for two independent" because it came from
the RSA "FAQ" for S/MIME, a competitor to MOSS, and because the wording was
wrong in the context of the paragraph in which it appeared.
This is not a suggestion on my part concerning potential interopability of
MOSS implementations. In fact, the existence of an independent prototype
implementation of MOSS that has been shown to interoperate with TIS/MOSS, at
least wrt signature verification, negates the intent of this bogus paragraph
in your "FAQ."
I have since received and read the old S/MIME "FAQ." (BTW, thanks for the WWW
reference to your new "FAQ.") The reason I am quoting the word "FAQ" is that
this document is titled "An RSA Data Security Marketing Brief" which IMHO
gives it dubious qualifications as a true-blue "FAQ." I notice that no such
annotation appears in your new "FAQ."
Thanks for listening...Jeff