Subject: [Sip] a compromise on S/MIME

From: Jonathan Rosenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 14:16:21 -0500

Folks,

After some discussions with Allison and the editors, we have a
compromise solution on S/MIME that I believe will be satisfactory.

The compromise was to keep S/MIME in the specification, but to downgrade
its usage from SHOULD to MAY.

Removing SMIME entirely from the spec is not going to be acceptable. The
reason, simply, is that without it, we have no sufficient e2e security
story. Not all applications will want to use it (and thus the downgrade
to MAY), but as a protocol, SIP is not complete unless it can address
e2e security requirements that other applications will have. SMIME is
the only known, documented, reasonably complete, and thought through
mechanism that can address the range of e2e security requirements that
we need to address. Therefore, it is the only sensible solution to this
problem for the forseeable future, and SIP, on its own, must be able to
address the problem. 

What is most desired, therefore, is comments on the text itself, and we
would still welcome those in the time that remains. I will note that
some initial reviews of the SMIME text have been extremely positive
overall, and I'd like to commend Jon Peterson in particular for the
outstanding work he has done on this text.

Thanks,
Jonathan R.

-- 
Jonathan D. Rosenberg, Ph.D.            72 Eagle Rock Avenue
Chief Scientist                         First Floor
dynamicsoft                             East Hanover, NJ 07936
[email-masked]                 FAX: (973) 952-5050
http://www.jdrosen.net                  PH:  (973) 952-5000
http://www.dynamicsoft.com

_______________________________________________
Sip mailing list  https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/sip
This list is for NEW development of the core SIP Protocol
Use [email-masked] for questions on current sip
Use [email-masked] for new developments on the application of sip