Subject: draft-ietf-pkix-ac509prof-09.txt is coming...

From: "Housley, Russ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 11:44:25 -0400

Steve Farrell and I were just notified about an inconsistency with the AC 
Profile and the most recent X.509.  We are posting an update to resolve the 
issue.  This quick note summarizes the minor change and the reason for it.

Presently, we require that an AA be identified by a distinguished 
name.  This is parallel the RFC 2459 requirement that a CA be identified by 
a distinguished name.

The AA is identified with the following ASN.1:

    AttCertIssuer ::= CHOICE {
      v1Form GeneralNames,
      v2Form [0] V2Form }

    V2Form ::= SEQUENCE {
      issuerName GeneralNames OPTIONAL,
      baseCertificateID [0] IssuerSerial OPTIONAL,
      objectDigestInfo [1] ObjectDigestInfo OPTIONAL }

Due to a backward compatibility issue, the v1Form no longer exists in 
X.509.  So, to get what we want, we must require the use if issuerName in 
the v2Form.  This all works out just fine except that it generates 
different bits on the wire!  There is an additional zero-tagged SEQUENCE, 
and the associated length, before the GeneralNames.

Russ