[58] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: S\MIME
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Donald E. Eastlake 3rd)
Thu Jan 16 10:35:32 1997
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 23:23:21 -0500 (EST)
From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <dee@cybercash.com>
To: cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <9999999990000000@mailman.globalkey.com>
S/MIME started as a private consortium effort mandating proprietary RSADSI
algorithms defaulting to relatively weak 40 bit keys all under the S/MIME
label, which is a trademark of RSADSI. However, it has enormous marketing
effort behind it compared with, say, a profiled version of MOSS (the current
IETF standard) or even PGP (which is the defacto standard).
But that was just how things started. There seems to be a marked confluence
with both a PGP working group and S/MIME BoF at the last IETF meeting. Both
S/MIME and PGP have changed so as to use the IETF MIME Security MultiParts,
like MOSS, at least for signed but unencrypted messages. There now seems to
be a possibility of an IETF standard using the S/MIME formats but including
only strong open algorithms and key sizes. Something supporting such a
hypothetical IETF standard and also supporting the S/MIME proprietary stuff
could almost certainly advertise itself as S/MIME compliant and IETF
standard. But PGP has a head start and isn't standing still.
All in all, I'd say "who knows...".
Donald
On Wed, 15 Jan 1997 weboland@globalkey.com wrote:
> Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 09:38:13 -0700
> From: weboland@globalkey.com
> To: cryptography@c2.net
> Subject: S\MIME
>
>
All:
> Is there a consensus or a general "feeling" that S\MIME will
> become the defacto standard for secure e-mail over the internet? Other
> options?
> Walt
>
=====================================================================
Donald E. Eastlake 3rd +1 508-287-4877(tel) dee@cybercash.com
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http://www.cybercash.com http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html
