Subject: Document Action: 'Use of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) Algorithms in Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)' to Informational RFC

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 09:53:00 -0700 (PDT)

The IESG has approved the following document:

- 'Use of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) Algorithms in Cryptographic 
   Message Syntax (CMS) '
   <draft-ietf-smime-3278bis-09.txt> as an Informational RFC

This document is the product of the S/MIME Mail Security Working Group. 

The IESG contact persons are Tim Polk and Pasi Eronen.

A URL of this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-smime-3278bis-09.txt

Technical Summary

This document describes how to use Elliptic Curve Cryptography
(ECC) public-key algorithms in the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS).
The ECC algorithms support the creation of digital signatures and the
exchange of keys to encrypt or authenticate content. The definition of
the algorithm processing is based on the NIST FIPS 186-3 for digital
signatures, NIST SP800-56A and SEC1 for key agreement, RFC 3370 and
RFC 3565 for key wrap and content encryption, NIST FIPS 180-3 for
message digest, SEC1 for key derivation, and RFC 2104 and RFC 4231
for message authentication code standards. This document
obsoletes RFC 3278.

Working Group Summary

This document was discussed on the S/MIME WG mailing list. The discussion
was primarily about document quality and consistency.

Document Quality

Implementations of SignedData with ECDSA and EnvelopedData with ECDH
have  been available for some time from multiple vendors. Implementation
of the "new" algorithms (i.e., using SHA-2 and AES algorithms) is expected
shortly, now that the relevant NIST documents (e.g., FIPS 186-3) have been
finalized.

Personnel

Russ Housley is the document PROTO Shepherd. Tim Polk is the responsible
Security Area AD.