Subject: Protocol Action: 'X.509 Certificate Extension for S/MIME Capabilities' to Proposed Standard

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 17:13:57 -0400

The IESG has approved the following document:

- 'X.509 Certificate Extension for S/MIME Capabilities '
   <draft-ietf-smime-certcapa-05.txt> as a Proposed Standard

This document is the product of the S/MIME Mail Security Working Group. 

The IESG contact persons are Russ Housley and Sam Hartman.

A URL of this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-smime-certcapa-05.txt

Technical Summary
 
  This protocol provides an X.509 public key certificate extension to indicate
  the end entity's S/MIME cryptographic capabilities.  It is an optional,
  non-critical extension.
 
Working Group Summary
 
  Initially, the major discussion point was whether this mechanism, which is
  considered a "static" mechanism, is better or worse than a more "dynamic"
  mechanism, which could change without affecting the public key certificates
  contents.  The WG decided to allow for the possibility of another editor
  could step for to define the "dynamic" mechanism, but that this "static"
  mechanism should be allowed to proceed.  The other discussions on the draft
  were considered minor, mostly dealt with the security considerations
  wording, and these issues were resolved quickly.
 
Protocol Quality
 
  The protocol is implemented by one vendor already in a number of their
  products.

  This document was reviewed by Russ Housley for the IESG.