draft-ietf-pkix-pi-07

[Russ Housley <housley@vigilsec.com>]

Draft -06 of this document has already been on the Telechat agenda.  Please 
see:

   http://www.ietf.org/IESG/EVALUATIONS/draft-ietf-pkix-pi.bal


This document allows naming authorities to be identified by an ASN.1 OID or 
an URI.  The following ASN.1 syntax is used:

     PermanentIdentifier ::=     SEQUENCE {
        identifierValue              IdentifierValue,
        identifierType               IdentifierType OPTIONAL,
        matchingRule        [0]      IMPLICIT OBJECT IDENTIFIER OPTIONAL
     }

     IdentifierType ::= CHOICE {
            registeredOID                   OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
            uri                             IA5String
     }

Some people are uncomfortable with OIDs. For one thing, there is no 
straightforward way of getting to know anything more about them than the 
values of their numbers, which give no hint of the context in which they 
were assigned.

Some people are uncomfortable with URIs. Their content is subject to 
various interpretations, and people sometimes make unreasonable guesses 
based on the strings embedded in the URI.

After discussions between the document authors and some other people, they 
came to the conclusion that no change was needed to the core document, but 
that an informative annex was necessary to deal with the topic of permanent 
URIs.

The document draft-ietf-pkix-pi-07.txt is an update where an annex C has 
been added in order to address the concern.

Are IESG members happy with this approach?

Russ