Re: DER in ac509prof-03

["Rich Ankney" <rankney@xxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Gutmann <pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz>
To: pkoning@xedia.com <pkoning@xedia.com>
Cc: ietf-pkix@imc.org <ietf-pkix@imc.org>
Date: Wednesday, May 10, 2000 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: DER in ac509prof-03


>Paul Koning <pkoning@xedia.com> writes:
>
>>Also, while old RFCs are still available, 12 year old ITU specs may only
>>exist in antique shops by now.
>
>It's the same for ASN.1 books, Prof.Larmouth's book is for current versions
of
>ASN.1 rather than the obsolete versions referenced in RFC's, so it would
>probably do more to confuse than help.  The only reference for the obsolete
>variant of ASN.1 is Douglas Steedmans "Tutorial and Reference", which is
>useful for that version but doesn't apply to any current version.  This
book
>has been out of print for years, so you'd actually have to go to antique
>shops (well, used book stores) to find it.
>

Well, Larmouth's book does discuss these earlier artifacts (macros and
ANY DEFINED BY), although it's certainly not very detailed.

>>Clearly, it is not acceptable to have an RFC that points to an outside
>>standard unless that outside standard is available.
>
>It could be argued that the ASN.1 specs, being ISO standards, aren't
usefully
>"available" no matter whether it's an obsolete or current version which is
>being referenced :-).
>

I heard from a generally reliable source that ITU-T is going to cave in and
distribute the ASN.1 specs (X.680 and X.690) for free via their website.
I heard this about a month ago, and they are still charging, but after all
this
IS the ITU we're talking about.  Has anyone else heard this?
>Peter.
>
>
Regards,
Rich