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Re: specification language?



Hi Bob.

At 17:33 3/24/96, Jueneman@gte.com wrote:

>I though we had already agreed that X.509 did not specifically require a
>"name"
>per se, as prt of the DN. If you want to use the key itself as a DN, or say an
>arbitrary customer nunmber, you are free to do so.

and

>Since X.509 explicitly allows new extensions to be created whenever there is
>the need, I cannot imagine how you can argue that these two different meanings
>cannot be encoded in X.509.

You're right.  X.509 appears to have added enough generality in V3 to allow
it to become useful :) -- and if the DN can really be anything I please --
and if anyone can issue a certificate, so that there don't need to be CAs
in the world -- then it sounds like the two efforts are converging.  All I
need now from the X.509 world is a renunciation of X.500 and of ASN.1.

But seriously folks ---

I agree that once we in SPKI come up with a certificate contents which
makes sense, is useable and has no unnecessary garbage, someone [not I!]
can come up with an ASN.1 encoding for it and/or a set of extensions to
X.509 to represent the same thing.  I think that's wonderful, for them.  I,
personally, would prefer to start from the blank sheet of paper and avoid
all the excess baggage [both programming and mental] which comes with X.509
-- but that's my preference.

 - Carl

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