Re: Evaluation: draft-ietf-pilc-link-design - Advice for Internet Subnetwork Designers to BCP

[Patrik Fältström <paf@cisco.com>]

On onsdag, mar 5, 2003, at 20:53 Europe/Stockholm, Russ Housley wrote:

> 1.  PGP is mentioned in the 3rd paragraph.  S/MIME should also be 
> listed.  S/MIME is included in every major mail agent (except the one 
> from Qualcomm).  While S/MIME suffers from the lack of ubiquitous 
> certificate enrollment, PGP suffers from the lack of integration into 
> mail stream mail agents.  In my opinion, either mention both or 
> neither.
I agree in general, but, my guess is that the text is as it is as it 
describes what is in use.

Personally, I receive pgp-signed email every day, but have never got an 
email signed with S/MIME, _except_ from Jeff Schiller a few times.

And for the email programs I have used, I have always found PGP plugins 
but never S/MIME. No, I have never used Netscape mailer or outlook. 
Only pine, mh, eudora, mulberry and apple mail.app.

Note that the paragraph start with saying what is deployed and in use. 
I claim S/MIME is not in use on the global Internet.

If you have other data, please let me know. It would be bad if I am 
wrong here.

That said, if S/MIME is really in use on the global Internet, of course 
it should be mentioned. That it is implemented, or used in closed 
environments is though not enough for me.

   paf