Subject: PKIX TS Draft rev 15 -

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 23:08:09 -0700

There are some issues I think with the language in the opening of the rev 15 draft. One instance that should be addressed is the issue of the incompatible use of "may" and "is" in the abstract and opening sections. 

<!--StartFragment-->A TSA may be operated as a Trusted 
Third Party (TTP) service, though other operational models may be 
appropriate, e.g. an organization might require a TSA for internal 
time stamping purposes.

In the above clip the abstract specifically states the operation may be a TTP but in all other sections of the document the architecture is assumed to be a TTP model.

<!--StartFragment-->...a Time Stamp Authority (TSA) may need to be used.  This Trusted Third 
Party...

I was thinking about using a TSA as distributed timestamp engines, and in a corporate-use-model I might want more than one. Say a corporation might have  4 or 6 or more TSA's internal to its Intranet, and in using them I might want to be able to advertise to the clients  and from the client side, as well as be able to broadcast a query for a TSA. 

The other thing is that to complete this, there really needs to be some way of communicating/qualifying the policy from the client's side so that the client can select whether this is the TSA they want to do business with. 

Just my two cents.

This way I can ask for TSA's, review their policies, and transact a TS instance with the one I select.

Todd Glassey