Subject: Reminder - Draft NIST S/MIME Profile - Comment Period Ends Soon

From: Michael Chernick <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 15:30:38 -0400

A Reminder.

At the SMIME session at the London IETF meeting, it was suggested that
NIST extend the deadline for comments on the Draft NIST S/MIME V3 Client
Profile.  Also, it was suggested that this notice be sent to the PKIX list
as well as the SMIME list. The deadline for comments was extended
until 17 September 2001.  THIS DATE IS FAST APPROACHING.
(NEXT WEEK.)

Thanks,
   Mike Chernick

Here's the original  announcement sent out
by Tim Polk on Monday, 2 July 2001 to the SMIME list.

---------Original Message Sent by Tim Polk to SMIME List on 2 July---------
FYI,

I have attached below the announcement for a recently released NIST draft
document concerning S/MIME V3. The document is intended to define an
appropriate subset of the S/MIME standards for broad application in the U.S.
Federal Government. NIST will be supporting this document through the
development of an automated conformance testing tool. We hope the deployment
of this tool will ease the development of conformant S/MIME V3 clients!

We are very interested in comments from both developers and the user
community. Please take the time to review the draft profile and NIST's plans
for the automated testing facility. We would appreciate comments on the
profile by 17 August 2001 (now extended to 17 September). Please send
comments to Mike Chernick (NIST's S/MIME project leader) at 
<[email-masked]>.

BTW, Mike will be presenting an overview of this project in the S/MIME WG
during the London IETF meeting. Both Mike and I will be there all week, and
will be available to discuss this project.

Thanks!

Tim Polk

----------------------
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has recently
released a draft S/MIME V3 Client Profile. This profile was produced as
guidance in the development and procurement of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)
S/MIME-compliant products. This profile document identifies requirements for a
secure and interoperable S/MIME V3 client implementation. The profile cites
requirements for sending and receiving both signed and encrypted messages, as
well as requirements for signed receipt processing.

Although the S/MIME specifications were designed to promote interoperable
secure electronic mail, implementations may support different optional 
services
and the specifications may unintentionally allow multiple interpretations. 
As a
result, different implementations of S/MIME may not be fully interoperable or
provide the desired level of security. Conformance to this proposed profile
will help to assure that S/MIME implementations will be able to interoperate
and provide reasonable security assurance to users.

The Draft Profile is available (in PDF format) for public comment at:
http://csrc.ncsl.nist.gov/pki/smime/draft_SMIMEProfile.pdf

Comments are requested by (**was 17 August 2001**) *****NOW EXTENDED TO
17 September 2001***** and should be sent to [email-masked].

NIST is developing tests and testing tools to determine the level of
conformance of an S/MIME V3 client implementation with this profile. It is
planned that within the next several months, NIST will have a remote testing
facility on-line which will allow S/MIME V3 messages to be sent to the NIST
test site for processing to determine if the remotely generated messages
conform to the profile. In addition, messages may be sent to the test site to
cause the NIST site to emit S/MIME V3 messages so that a remote system may
receive S/MIME V3 messages, and verify that remote system can process the
messages correctly.

Further information on the NIST S/MIME Program may be obtained at
http://csrc.ncsl.nist.gov/pki/smime/welcome.htm or by
contacting Michael Chernick at <[email-masked]>.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C. Michael Chernick
+1-301-975-3610   [email-masked]
Computer Security Division
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
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