Subject: Last Call: draft-ietf-smime-3850bis (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) Version 3.2 Certificate Handling) to Proposed Standard

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:40:53 -0700 (PDT)

The IESG has received a request from the S/MIME Mail Security WG (smime)
to consider the following document:

- 'Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) Version 3.2 
   Certificate Handling '
   <draft-ietf-smime-3850bis-08.txt> as a Proposed Standard

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action.

In particular, the IESG solicits comments on the cryptographic strength
requirements specified in section 4.3, Certificate and CRL Signing
Algorithm and Key Sizes, and the following statement from Section 6,
Security Considerations:

   "Today, 512-bit RSA, DSA and DH keys are considered by many experts
   to be cryptographically insecure."

These sections require S/MIME recieving agents to support RSA key lengths
between 512 and 1024 bits, and permit support for DSA key lengths between
512 and 1024 bits.  Given that other organizations are moving
to a minimum key length of 2048 bits, the IESG wishes to verify IETF
consensus for the cryptographic minimums in this document.

Please send substantive comments to the
[email-masked] mailing lists by 2008-11-13. Exceptionally, 
comments may be sent to [email-masked] instead. In either case, please 
retain the beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

The file can be obtained via
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-smime-3850bis-08.txt

IESG discussion can be tracked via
https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/pidtracker.cgi?command=view_id&dTag=16576&rfc_flag=0

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