Subject: Re: A PKI for the Internet (was RE: Scale (and the SRV record))

From: Stephen Kent <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 18:14:08 -0500

Al,

>This is one of the areas where the SPKI folk make sense.  There is not, and
>will not ever be, a single, unified, global directory where everything has
>a name that fits into the schema.  There are instead "directories" of
>information that apply to a specific "domain".  In PKIX's case, it's the
>information that applies to the Internet.  The namespace covers those
>things that are important in the Internet context, and nothing else.  To
>me, that's (right now), IP addresses, domain names, port numbers, service
>names, user names/mailbox names, and maybe one or two other things. If the
>Internet expands to cover toll plazas, then a naming space will have to be
>developed for them, and after it's defined and standardized we can figure
>out how to put the proper names in certificates.

The notion of no single, unique, name that is appropriate for every context
is not unqiue to SPKI;  I've been preaching this notion for at least 3
years and gave talks on this at a DIMACS workshop in 1996 and at the RSA
conference in 1997, before publishing a paper on the topic in MILCOM 97.
The SDSI model says that the names in certs are not useful except very
locally, and hence emphasizes the idea of the key as an ID.  What we are
talkin g about does not share that notion.  DNS names, 822 addresses, IP
addresses, URLs, etc. have widespread semantics, even though they are not
universal.

Steve

---

From: Al Arsenault <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 1998 08:05:15 -0500

Steve,

We agree completely on this.  I think that's what Section 5.1.2 of the PKIX
Roadmap document says; it's what we were trying to capture. If we didn't do
a good enough job of it, we can correct it.

I recognize that many non-SPKI-folk share this view.  Hey, I was just
trying to be polite to the folk doing the SPKI work. :-)

			Al Arsenault

-- these are my opinions only. They do not necessarily reflect the 
opinions of my employer, or of any other organization with which I have a 
relationship.

>addresses, URLs, etc. have widespread semantics, even though they are not

-- these are my opinions only. They do not necessarily reflect the 
opinions of my employer, or of any other organization with which I have a 
relationship.