Re: S/MIME

[Martin W Sachs <mwsachs@us.ibm.com>]

Part of the key question is whether the MSH has to do any encrypting itself
or whether it expects to get the encrypted payload from above.  I suspect
the latter but the MS spec should be clear on this.

PKI-related agreements are in scope for the CPPA team and this is on the
very full plate of the security subteam.

Regards,
Marty

*************************************************************************************

Martin W. Sachs
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
P. O. B. 704
Yorktown Hts, NY 10598
914-784-7287;  IBM tie line 863-7287
Notes address:  Martin W Sachs/Watson/IBM
Internet address:  mwsachs @ us.ibm.com
*************************************************************************************



christopher ferris <chris.ferris@east.sun.com>@Sun.COM on 08/15/2001
09:09:57 AM

Sent by:  Chris.Ferris@Sun.COM


To:   Dan Weinreb <dlw@exceloncorp.com>
cc:   ebxml-msg@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject:  Re: S/MIME



Dan Weinreb wrote:
>
> Chris, in mail some time ago, you said:
>
>    Transient confidentiality may be provided at the transport level using
>    TLS (SSL), IPSEC or other similar mechanisms which provide for
encryption
>    on the wire. S/MIME may be used to provide for persistent
confidentiality
>    of the payload object(s).
>
> Is it really OK to use S/MIME in this way?  The MS spec doesn't seem
> to say anything about S/MIME.
>
> I have not yet gotten up to speed on S/MIME (so many RFC's, so little
> time) but would we have to specify something about how the key
> exchange is done, analogously to the initial negotiation in TLS?
> There would have to be some way to tell the MSH the avlue of the
> private key and corresponding certificate, no?  I don't really
> know the details, but it seems that if we want to allow S/MIME,
> we have to do more than just say "yes, go ahead, use S/MIME"...
>
> Thanks.
> -- Dan
Dan,

The ebMS spec doesn't say anything about the payload intentionally.
The reference to S/MIME means that the payload, not the overall "envelope"
can be S/MIME encrypted.

As for key exchange, that is clearly outside our scope. How parties
negotiate their shared PKI is not our concern in designing the
ebMS messaging protocol. That would be in the domain of something like
XKMS.

Cheers,

Chris

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