Subject: RE: Issues with S/MIME Message Specification

From: Andrew Ferguson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 19:47:21 +1000

Andrew, Robert, All,
As a watcher, but not up to now an active participant in this debate on the
matter of  Issues with the S/MIME Message specification, I believe it
should say SHOULD (definitly not MUST) and perhaps to be precise refer to
the newly ratified Wassenaar agreement,  eg : "except where prohibited
under the Wassenaar Agreement" which will cover export and import into and
from various countries. This will in effect provide a neat get out clause
covering both issues. The reality as Bob points out below we Aussies are
not necessarily worried about the US Export laws, but of course Australia
now exports our own crypto developed products so we would also affected by
the statement MUST.

Anyway thats my contribution.

At 10:34 19/05/99 , Robert R. Jueneman wrote:
>>>With respect to the issue of bcc'ing the originator on an encrypted
>>>message, although I suppose it is possible that the originator doesn't
>>>have a public encryption key, this seems mildly unlikely, so I am more
>>>inclined to agree with William Whyte's comment.
>>
>>I'm not sure that the My Esteemed Colleague's comment was anything
>>more than a point of information. There will be situations when an
>>application should include an originator key, but there are also counter
>>examples. Locking a MUST into the standard is unnecessary, particularly
>>since there's no compelling interoperability or security issue.
>>
>>>I wish I could find where I read that statement -- I thought it was in =
>>>one of the RFC's, but I can't find it.
>>
>>draft-ietf-smime-msg-08.txt, section 3.3
>
>Thanks. I knew I had read it, but couldn't find it.
>
>Now that I see the exact text once again, and given the apparent 
>request by some to NOT keep a copy, I can live with SHOULD.
>
>>
>>Also, it should be noted that switching from MUST RC4 to MUST tripleDES
>>was the very first thing the ietf-smime group did, back 2 years ago.
>>There was a lot of discussion back then, all of it available on the IMC
>>mail archive. Not intended as a brush-off: there was a lot of relevant
>>debate.
>>
>I can certainly understand preferring triple-DES vs. RC4, but I'm still not 
>thrilled about having a firm specification that it is illegal for me to 
>comply with 
>if I hope to export the product.  I can fully understand that perhaps you 
>might not share my concern on this point--neither do the Canadians, the
>Australians, or others!  :-)
>
>But what would your position be if the situation were reversed, or if, for 
>example, you could not export such a product to the US, and you might 
>face losing half of your market as a result?
>
>I confess I haven't looked up the precise definition of MUST. Is there 
>perhaps some face saving wriggle-room that says something like
>"except where prohibited by law or regulations"?
>
>Not being compliant with the RFC doesn't bother me all that much--
>there aren't any IETF police, and procurements that require 
>compatibility just won't get it, except for US/Canada domestic and 
>certain industry sectors outside the US.  
>
>What concerns me more is the assumption that because the 
>standard says MUST, there is a presumption that it WILL
>actually be so, and that interoperability decisions about 
>what kind of algorithms can be used can assume this as a default.
>T'ain't so, unfortunately, unless all of the US vendors roll over and 
>play dead in the European and Asian markets. And that isn't 
>going to happen.
>
>Regards,
>
>Bob
>
>

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From: "Enzo Michelangeli" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 19:24:50 +0800

I disagree totally with the idea of making strong encryption optional.
First of all, one cannot use SHOULD on matters of minimal compliance.
Second, a standard cannot be defined conditionally to the local laws: at
most, the development process of actual products, and their sales, may have
to depend on them.
Third, allowing exportable (i.e., totally useless) encryption in algorithms
and protocols required for minimal compliance will result in nobody buying
products based on that standard, opting instead for, e.g., OpenPGP, or even
de-facto standards. The right ways to avoid export restriction are:
a) Lobby your governments, letting them know that such stupid laws will
result in job losses and hamper the development of e-commerce, and have the
laws changed. This often works: France is a recent example.
b) If a) fails, develop products in places where those laws do not apply.

Deceiving the public with products which are defined "secure" (what does the
"S" in "S/MIME" stand for?), and are not, is not only unethical, but
ultimately will harm the sales and the vendor's bottom line. IETF should
steer clear from endorsing such ill-advised practices.

Enzo