Subject: Usages of the id-data content type

From: "Jim Schaad" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:40:21 -0800

At the meeting last week I presented an issue about the use of the id-data
content type that was raised in a review of the CMC documents.

Id-data is currently defined as being for unstructured data, but the S/MIME
working group treats it as being only for mime based data.  This can lead to
some intesting issues in trying to parse messages and deciding what to do
with this content for automatic processors.

Please respond to the following question:

Do you believe that the S/MIME group should define a new OID for a
unstructured content type and reserve id-data for mime data?

Jim

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From: [email-masked] (Peter Gutmann)
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 04:34:37 +1300

>unstructured content type and reserve id-data for mime data?

Definitely not.  id-data is currently used for PDFs, Word docs, XML, EDI, and
who knows how many other content-types.  If the S/MIME WG feels the need for a
specific type for MIME data, they should go the other way round and define an
id-mime.  The horse bolted on id-data long ago.

Peter.

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From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 15:26:31 -0500

>unstructured content type and reserve id-data for mime data?

Too many implementations use id-data in the context of MIME.  It is 
too later to change this situation.

A new OID for  unstructured binary data is fine with me.

Russ