Subject: Re: S-MIME key length

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 17:20:00 -0600

And your signed message causes GroupWise to say, effectively, that 
"[email-masked]" is not the same person 
as the "[email-masked]" that was issued a VeriSign
certificate.

But did Communicator complain because you don't haven't added the 
Novell root certificate to your cache of trusted roots, or because your 
incoming mail processor modified the contents somehow, or was 
there some other kind of problem?

And BTW, Has anyone notied the irony of having these kinds of problem 
on this list? Maybe we should all start eating our own dog food, and 
actually use the stuff we're building, on this list in particular?

This is signed with a 1024 bit key, using the same root certificate, which 
however uses a 2048 bit key.

Bob

>>> Dennis Glatting <[email-masked]> 10/27/99 03:34PM >>>
[email-masked] wrote:
> 
> This message is signed with a 2048 bit key.  So far, I haven't encountered anyone
> who hasn't been able to validate the signature with that length key.  Encryption
> could conceivably be a different issue, depending on whether or not a recipient
> is constrained by export and/or import policy.
> 

Funny you should mention that. When I clicked to read your message my
Netscape 4.61 Communicator displays an icon stating "Invalid
Signature".

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 16:50:49 -0700

At 05:20 PM 10/27/99 -0600, [email-masked] wrote:
>Maybe we should all start eating our own dog food, and

This list is for developing the S/MIME protocol, not for developing S/MIME 
applications. There's a big difference. Many people are on this list to 
follow CMS issues that have nothing to do with S/MIME MUAs. I think it's 
inappropriate to burden them with experiments in interoperability that have 
nothing to do with the protocol.

If people want, I'd be happy to set up an S/MIME developer's list for 
issues and testing such as this.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

---

From: [email-masked] (Terry Hayes)
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 16:55:10 -0700

Thanks Bob,

Dennis' message appears invalid to me (Communicator) for the same reason you give.  And
yours is invalid because it's issued by Novell, which I don't trust (yet?).

Yes, I find it amusing that there are complaints about perfectly valid S/MIME messages
on this list.  You would think this would be one of the few places that you could send
signed messages without worrying about confusing the person at the other end.

Terry

---

From: Dennis Glatting <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 19:39:22 -0700

Terry Hayes wrote:
> 
> Thanks Bob,
> 
> Dennis' message appears invalid to me (Communicator) for 
> the same reason you give.  And yours is invalid because it's 
> issued by Novell, which I don't trust (yet?).
> 

My NS reader says your signature is good.

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 13:43:05 -0500

Bob:

While there is some irony in the situation, S/MIME-enabled mail clients are 
not a requirement to participate in this IETF Working Group.  We want to 
allow the widest possible participation on this list.

Russ
S/MIME WG Chair

At 05:20 PM 10/27/99 -0600, [email-masked] wrote:
 >[snip]
 >[snip]