Subject: Re: Comments on draft-ietf-smime-camellia

From: KATO Akihiro <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 13:45:58 +0900

Hi Jim

On Wed, 20 Nov 2002 13:51:19 -0500
"Jim Schaad" <[email-masked]> wrote:

snip

> 7.  Section 2.2:  I strongly suggest that you change the parameters for
> the key wrap algorithm OIDs to be ABSENT rather than NULL.

How is ABSENT that you say the meaning that says? We are using the word
called NULL is 'the parameter does not exist,but parameter field exist'. 

I think that this one is good.  It is because it becomes clear that the
parameter does not exist. 

On the other hand, there is the possibility that is interpreted that
default is used, if place itself that designates the parameter is absent. 

Regards.
--
-  KATO Akihiro
  + NTT Software Corporation
   + Internet Technology Laboratory

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 14:33:47 -0500

Kato:

I agree with Jim.

An algorithm identifier has the following syntax:

    AlgorithmIdentifier  ::=  SEQUENCE  {
         algorithm               OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
         parameters              ANY DEFINED BY algorithm OPTIONAL  }

Absent means that the optional parameters are not present.

NULL means that the fields is present with a null type (a tag of 0x05) and 
a length of zero.

Russ