Skip to main content

Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME
charter-ietf-lamps-04-01

The information below is for an older proposed charter
Document Proposed charter Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME WG (lamps) Snapshot
Title Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME
Last updated 2019-11-01
State External Review (Message to Community, Selected by Secretariat) Rechartering
WG State Active
IESG Responsible AD Deb Cooley
Charter edit AD Roman Danyliw
Send notices to (None)

charter-ietf-lamps-04-01

The PKIX and S/MIME Working Groups have been closed for some time. Some
updates have been proposed to the X.509 certificate documents produced
by the PKIX Working Group and the electronic mail security documents
produced by the S/MIME Working Group.

The LAMPS (Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME) Working
Group is chartered to make updates where there is a known constituency
interested in real deployment and there is at least one sufficiently
well specified approach to the update so that the working group can
sensibly evaluate whether to adopt a proposal.

The LAMPS WG is now tackling these topics:

  1. Specify the use of short-lived X.509 certificates for which no
    revocation information is made available by the Certification Authority.
    Short-lived certificates have a lifespan that is shorter than the time
    needed to detect, report, and distribute revocation information. As a
    result, revoking short-lived certificates is unnecessary and pointless.

  2. Update the specification for the cryptographic protection of email
    headers -- both for signatures and encryption -- to improve the
    implementation situation with respect to privacy, security, usability
    and interoperability in cryptographically-protected electronic mail.
    Most current implementations of cryptographically-protected electronic
    mail protect only the body of the message, which leaves significant
    room for attacks against otherwise-protected messages.

  3. The Certificate Management Protocol (CMP) is specified in RFC 4210,
    and it offers a vast range of certificate management options. CMP is
    currently being used in many different industrial environments, but it
    needs to be tailored to the specific needs of some environments. The
    LAMPS WG will develop a "lightweight" profile of CMP to more efficiently
    support of these environments and better facilitate interoperable
    implementation, while preserving cryptographic algorithm agility. In
    addition, necessary updates and clarifications to CMP will be specified
    in a separate document. This work will be coordinated with the LWIG WG.

In addition, the LAMPS WG may investigate other updates to documents
produced by the PKIX and S/MIME WG. The LAMPS WG may produce
clarifications where needed, but the LAMPS WG shall not adopt
anything beyond clarifications without rechartering.