Subject: RE: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-pkix-scvp-00.txt

From: Anders Rundgren <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 11:10:30 +0200

Michael,
>I knew you would turn up, Anders. A big voice from small devices :)

Thanx!

>1.What makes XML any better then ASN in PKI world?

Human-readable is one thing, another is the (still only anticipated) use
of XML for business documents like MSFTs Biz-Talk. The net effect could
be that for new systems XML can not only complement ASN.1,
but also replace EDI and various proprietary message formats.
XML is also the foundation for the WAP micro-browser that will be featured in the next-
generation of mobile-phones. Digital signing and XML seems like a
good mix as the combination of computer-readable and human-readable data
is badly needed for PKI-based e-commerce.

>2.Any more solid proposals/ideas about XML usage? 

I am sure that there are quite a few things going on in this field and I am personally
working with a design that that will use XML together with my "Thin PKI" approach to
create dynamical attributes replacing attribute certificates in businss-2-business e-commerce.

Actually I think that PKIX ACs and QCs could benefit from having the attribute part expressed in
XML and only use an ASN.1 wrapper to get both X509-compatibility and ease of 
decoding.

>3.Any known implementations?

Not that I know of but lots of things are probably in the works.

Regards
Anders Rundgren
http://www.mobilephones-tng.com

---

From: Stephen Kent <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 18:04:45 -0400

Anders,

We have heard from others who work for large companies who use the
technology base that you cite as unable to process ASN.1 structures, and
their comments are at odds with yours.

Yes, there are a lot of folks who are enamored with XML, as one would
expect of any new mechanism that has gotten so much hype in trade rags.  I
don't question the value of XML in some applications, but given the
commitment we already have to ASN.1 in our protocols and in the base cert
and CRL syntax, I don't see a good argument to change here.

Barring more evidence to the contrary, we should stick with ASN.1.

Steve

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From: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 12:48:18 -0700

Steve is absolutely right here. The While XML will likely expand to
encompass a number of the presentation processing formats, ass the core
representation mechanism we need something better.

Hard to believe but I support Steve's commentary in this 100%

Todd

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From: "William Z Pope" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 13:14:07 -0700

A point of clarification, XML is a human readable data description
format.  I has nothing to do with presentation.  XSL defines presentation
options for XML documents based on the structure and content of the XML
document.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion :^)

=bill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked]
> [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Thursday, July 08, 1999 12:48 PM
> To: Anders Rundgren; Stephen Kent
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-pkix-scvp-00.txt
>
>

---

From: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 13:28:14 -0700

I agree with you that the XSL standard does indeed address the encoding
standards, but ther real issue is why change from the standard ASN.1 mindset
to XML.

What is the gain here?

Todd

----- Original Message -----
From: William Z Pope <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked] <[email-masked]>; Anders
Rundgren <[email-masked]>; Stephen Kent <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 1999 1:14 PM
Subject: RE: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-pkix-scvp-00.txt