[cabfpub] Ballot Forum-11: Creation of S/MIME Certificates Working Group

Wed Feb 5 23:08:42 MST 2020

Tim, Wayne, Adriano,

Apple made a contribution and although HARICA disagrees with most of the 
recommended changes I believe there should be some discussion around 
that. Unfortunately, although I had started working on a response, I 
didn't have time to complete it on time. I was hoping to see some 
comments/responses from the proposer and endorsers before the voting 
period began.

For what it's worth, here is a list of my comments (attached). My 
biggest concern is the Certificate Consumer members that qualify based 
on "mail transfer agent". I would certainly like some more information 
about that before HARICA votes. Other than that, the charter looks good 
to me.

Best regards,
Dimitris.

On 2020-02-06 12:45 π.μ., Wayne Thayer via Public wrote:
> Based on my recollection of the Guangzhou discussion, and supported by 
> the minutes, the "path forward agreed to in Guangzhou" was that we 
> would take this charter to a ballot without further attempts to 
> resolve the issue of including identity in the charter's scope. There 
> does not appear to be a path to consensus on this issue, despite the 
> considerable amount of time spent discussing it. I'm unhappy with this 
> approach, but as one of the endorsers, I don't see an alternative 
> other than "take it to a vote" that gets this much-needed WG formed 
> any time soon.
>
> - Wayne
>
> On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 3:22 PM Ryan Sleevi via Public 
> <public at cabforum.org <mailto:public at cabforum.org>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Tim,
>
>     Could you point to where that's reflected in the minutes? Our
>     understanding here at Google is that Apple's proposed changes,
>     which we support and would be unable to participate without
>     incorporating, is that it accurately and correctly reflects the
>     discussions in London [1], reiterated in Cupertino [2], and agreed
>     upon in Thessaloniki [3]. It appears that, following that, the
>     proposers of that ballot ignored that consensus and conclusion,
>     and yet the discussion of Guangzhou [4] does not indicate there
>     was consensus to do so.
>
>     I'm hoping we've just overlooked something in the minutes, but
>     Apple's proposed changes seem imminently reasonable, and a
>     worthwhile path to drafting requirements that consuming software,
>     such as mail clients (both native and Web), can use and consume as
>     part of their root programs, as an alternative to their
>     root-program-specific requirements.
>
>     [1]
>     https://cabforum.org/2018/06/06/minutes-for-ca-browser-forum-f2f-meeting-44-london-6-7-june-2018/#New-SMIME-Working-Group-Charter
>     [2]
>     https://cabforum.org/2019/05/03/minutes-for-ca-browser-forum-f2f-meeting-46-cupertino-12-14-march-2019/#Creation-of-additional-Working-Groups---Secure-Mail
>     "Dean – We have a blank slate here and it seems the reluctance was
>     to make it a narrow scope and then focus on either one aspect of
>     SMIME. First task might be how to validate an email, and then
>     focus on identity validation. Some comments were to make the chart
>     narrow to focus on one task while others say to include all
>     proposed tasks to not have to recharter which has caused issues in
>     the past."
>     [3]
>     https://cabforum.org/2019/08/16/minutes-for-ca-browser-forum-f2f-meeting-47-thessaloniki-12-13-june-2019/#Creation-of-Additional-Groups---Secure-Mail
>     "Eventually, all parties in the conversation came to the
>     conclusion that it would behoove the Forum to scope the working
>     group charter to domain validation, first, before adding other
>     functionality once that portion was locked-down."
>     [4]
>     https://cabforum.org/2019/12/12/minutes-for-ca-browser-forum-f2f-meeting-48-guangzhou-5-7-november-2019/#Creation-of-Additional-Groups---Secure-Mail
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Public mailing list
>     Public at cabforum.org <mailto:Public at cabforum.org>
>     https://cabforum.org/mailman/listinfo/public
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Public mailing list
> Public at cabforum.org
> https://cabforum.org/mailman/listinfo/public

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://cabforum.org/pipermail/public/attachments/20200206/c14736ef/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Draft SMIME Charter 2020-01-31-ctw-HARICA.docx
Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Size: 34347 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://cabforum.org/pipermail/public/attachments/20200206/c14736ef/attachment-0001.docx>