Subject: Comments on QC-parts of PKIX roadmap.

From: Stefan Santesson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 13:54:52 +0200

Al,

You asked me in Minneapolis to check the new roadmap concerning the QC parts.
Well, I seam to have missed it's appearance on the list so here are my
comments a little bit late.

The following text is not quite right (from 3.6.1):

  "Certain organizations, such as countries, have recently mandated
   certain restrictions on certificates (such as that the subject of a
   certificate must be a natural person, or that the country of
   citizenship and/or country of residence of the subject must be
   included in the certificate).  A certificate which meets these
   restrictions is deemed a "qualified certificate."  In December 1998,
   PKIX adopted as a work item the development of a refinement of
   [RFC2459] that further profiles PKIX certificates into qualified
   certificates.  This work is reflected in [QC]."

In fact I would say that this is wrong. I don't know of any country making
such statements.

I would put it more like this:

"Certain countries are in a process of updating their legal frameworks in
order to regulate and incorporate recognition of signatures in electronic
form. Many of these frameworks introduce certain basic requirements on
certificates, often termed Qualified Certificates, supporting these types
of "legal" signatures. Partly as a result of this there is a need for a
specific certificate profile providing standardized support for certain
related issues such as a common structure for expressing unambiguous
identities of certified subjects (unmistakable identity). In December 1998,
PKIX adopted as a work item the development of a refinement of [RFC2459]
that further profiles PKIX certificates into qualified certificates.  This
work is reflected in [QC]."

Please feel free to edit this as you like.

/Stefan

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Stefan Santesson                <[email-masked]>
Accurata Systemsäkerhet AB      http://www.accurata.se
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