Re: IETF process

["Alain Zahm" <zahm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

One (more) silly question: what about MOSS? Isn(t it THE INTERNET standard
for secured email?



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> De : David P. Kemp <dpkemp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> A : ietf-open-pgp@xxxxxxx
> Objet : Re: IETF process
> Date : lundi 10 novembre 1997 16:27
> 
> > From: Ned Freed <Ned.Freed@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > 
> > This then means that there will be no less than four S/MIMEs:
> > 
> > (1) The original RSADSI S/MIME.
> > (2) The one that's coming out as a set of informational RFCs.
> > (3) The one the WG will standardize.
> > (4) The one that will result from the PKCS rewrite that RSADSI is
supposedly
> >     doing.
> > 
> > Wow! That's a lot of S/MIMEs! Mind you, there may be a high degree of
> > compatibility between all of them -- I wouldn't know about that. But
let's hope
> > that we don't have quite so many PGPs...
> 
> 
> Wow, that would be a lot of S/MIMEs, if they were truly different. 
But...
> (1) and (2) are supposed to describe the identical (not just compatible)
> protocol - it's just a matter of writing down S/MIME v2 as Informational
> RFCs, perhaps making technical corrections, clarifications, and
collecting
> dispersed information into a single document.  This would be analogous to
> publishing an Informational RFC on PGP 2.6.
> 
> There is discussion regarding (3) and (4); IETF S/MIME was originally
> supposed to be based on the PKCS#7 v2 message syntax, but the Internet
> Drafts for IETF S/MIME are now based on PKCS#7 v1.5, with the minimum
> changes required to accommodate algorithm flexibility, signed receipts,
> and a couple of other flaws.  This syntax might have been called PKCS#7
> v1.7 (v1.6 included mods to accommodate the SET credit card
> protocol), but it is not - the PKCS#7 name will no longer be used - it
> is now called the S/MIME Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS).
> 
> The evolution of CMS will be determined entirely by the IETF S/MIME
> working group - it may incorporate features from the
independently-evolving
> PKCS#7 v2 or it may not.  But in no case will there be two IETF
(Standard)
> S/MIMEs; there will be only one, and it will be based on CMS.
> 
> To summarize, there will be only two S/MIMEs: v2 described by original
> RSA documents and Informational RFCs, and v3 described by whatever
> Standard RFCs are produced by the working group.  There is the intent
> that v3 will *allow* backwards interoperability with v2, but there is
> no MUST requirement for implementations to support backwards-compatible
> algorithms and message formats.
> 
> Sorry to burden the PGP list with this level of detail on the
competition,
> but accurate information is in everyone's best interest.