SFL Interop Testing

[jsp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (John Pawling)]

All,

J.G. Van Dyke and Associates (VDA) is developing the S/MIME Freeware Library
(SFL) to implement the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft S/MIME
version 3 set of specifications.  Recently, VDA used the SFL to successfully
exchange signed and encrypted  S/MIME messages with legacy S/MIME version 2
products.  This testing is the initial step in proving the interoperability
of the current draft IETF S/MIME v3 set of specifications with the S/MIME v2
specifications (RFC 2315, RFC 2311, RFC 2312) based on the PKCS #7, v1.5
specification.  This testing proves that the SFL code is maturing and will
soon be a viable candidate for incorporation into applications that require
S/MIME v3 capabilities including the optional S/MIME v3 security features.

VDA successfully tested the SFL at the Internet Mail Consortium
(IMC)-sponsored SecureConnect 1 event held on July 23-24, 1998 in San Jose,
CA.  We used the SFL to verify the digital signature of S/MIME version 2
signedData messages created by RSA (S/MAIL toolkit), WorldTalk, Microsoft
and Entrust.   We used the SFL to create S/MIME v2 signedData messages that
were verified by RSA, WorldTalk and Microsoft.  We used the SFL to decrypt
an S/MIME v2 envelopedData message encrypted using the RSA S/MAIL toolkit.
Also at SecureConnect, we began interoperability testing of S/MIME v3
features with Microsoft.  We believe that the SecureConnect event was
extremely valuable and we plan to participate at the next SecureConnect
event scheduled for Spring 1999. 

Prior to the SecureConnect event, VDA performed interoperability testing
between the Microsoft Outlook Express (MSOE) S/MIME v2 e-mail client and the
SFL.  We used the SFL to successfully verify the signature of an
MSOE-generated v2 signedData message.  We used the SFL to create a
signedData message that was verified by MSOE.  We used the SFL to decrypt an
envelopedData that was encrypted by MSOE.  We used the SFL to encrypt an
envelopedData that was then decrypted using MSOE.  We also used the SFL to
exchange a signed and encrypted S/MIME v2 message (i.e. signedData
encapsulated within envelopedData) with MSOE.

All of this interoperability testing was conducted using the RSA suite of
algorithms.  We plan to test the IETF mandatory crypto algorithms: Secure
Hash Algorithm-1, Digital Signature Algorithm, Triple Digital Encryption
Standard and Diffie-Hellman key agreement algorithm.

To achieve these results, we made minor changes to the SFL v0.3 code such as
adding support for additional object identifiers.  We plan to deliver an
updated release of the SFL that includes these fixes by the end of August.

More information regarding the SFL is available on the Fortezza Developer's
S/MIME Page (http://www.armadillo.huntsville.al.us/software/smime).

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John Pawling, jsp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx                             
J.G. Van Dyke & Associates, Inc.   
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