From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Lucio De Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] re: spam filtering fs
Message-ID: <20030903095933.E15496@cackle.proxima.alt.za>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0309011936070.12085-100000@maxroach.lanl.gov> <3c71aba4e63ff62b9994dfa980885f02@plan9.bell-labs.com>
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In-Reply-To: <3c71aba4e63ff62b9994dfa980885f02@plan9.bell-labs.com>; from Eric Grosse on Tue, Sep 02, 2003 at 09:56:05AM -0400
Date: Wed,  3 Sep 2003 09:59:34 +0200
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On Tue, Sep 02, 2003 at 09:56:05AM -0400, Eric Grosse wrote:
>
> Any volunteers to implement S/MIME for Plan 9?   A couple of us here at
> Bell Labs have worked on it off and on, but there aren't enough free
> hands here to get it done promptly.  Step one is to implement CMS (also
> known as PKCS#7 or rfc2315) starting from the ASN.1 goo in
> /sys/src/libsec/port/x509.c or, if you prefer, by porting an ASN.1
> compiler.
>
No guarantee, but I'm game.  I'm neither afraid of ASN.1 nor a fan of
reinventing the wheel.  Anyone else volunteering?

> By the way, I've happily used PGP for many years but decided that S/MIME
> was more likely to catch on because it is already moderately well
> supported by default in Outlook and Netscape/Mozilla.
>
PGP and S/MIME address different audiences.  What is needed is a
lightweight CA that merely certifies an e-mail address (like the
PGP public key servers if they were restricted to e-mail addresses
on a first-come, first-served basis) so that users are encouraged,
not frightened off getting a certificate.  And some form of recourse
in the event of someone stealing the e-mail address, and that's the
hard part, sadly.

++L