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Tue Feb 4 15:31:57 UTC 2003

Jack,

Tuesday, February 4, 2003, 7:16:04 AM, you wrote:
JB> From: "Daniel Senie"
>> I'd be happy to see certs in use for MTA-MTA
>> (and indeed support this today on my systems when talking to other MTAs
>> which are using STARTTLS).
...
JB> I'm concerned with MTA to MTA. ... A flag day is
JB> necessary, and certification from MTA to MTA is necessary.

Please consider how many MTAs interact on the global Internet.  Please
consider that each is operated by a different, independent organization.
Please consider that there is no single authority over all those
organizations.

A flag day is not possible for changing the infrastructure of any
network operation that is large.  Even when there is a single authority,
service operators cannot perform a conversion "instantly".

In a medium-sized company -- and that means that theoretically there is
a single authority over everyone -- a serious change to the network
infrastructure will take at least 6 months.

For the Internet, it takes many years to obtain broad adoption of a
change.

d/

ps.  Please note that there is still no large-scale use of certificates,
although the technology for them has existed for years.  Therefore it is
important to be very conservative, when specifying a system behavior
that depends upon their use.
-- 
 Dave <mailto:dcrocker at brandenburg.com>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 t +1.408.246.8253; f +1.408.850.1850