Subject: draft-ietf-pkix-pi-06

From: "Otto Mueller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 09:07:32 +0200

Dear PKIX WG:
Please note that Cyber Identity has now emerged as a very hot topic.
Permanent Identifiers in X.509 certificates are an important link in the
Cyber Identity system. The Internet draft-ietf-pkix-pi-06 defines very
clearly the syntax how to incorporate a unique identifier of some entity
into a X.509 certificate.

Now, we state that the discussion about this very useful prospective RFC has
come into a deadlock. The issues are:
- an URI is easily workable but is not considered "permanent enough";
- an OID is really permanent but is not easily workable in applications;

We think the assessment
- if a specific URI is "permanent enough" and
- if an OID is workable in applications
should be left
- to the certification authority issuing a certificate according to its
certificate policy and
- to the relying party using some application to extract the permanent
identifier.

The certification authority is responsible for the content of the
certificate i.e. the permanent identifier and the relying party has to
decide if they accept the certificate policy related to the certificate.
However, they need a clear syntax which is given by the
draft-ietf-pkix-pi-06.

Therefore, we suggest that the draft should be left as is and be updated by
some explanation as outlined above.

Regards,
Otto and Adrian Mueller

Otto Mueller
c/o Zurich chamber of commerce
phone +41 1 217 40 50
fax   +41 1 217 40 51