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Concluded WG Privacy-Enhanced Electronic Mail (pem)

Note: The data for concluded WGs is occasionally incorrect.

WG Name Privacy-Enhanced Electronic Mail
Acronym pem
Area Security Area (sec)
State Concluded
Charter charter-ietf-pem-01 Approved
Document dependencies
Personnel Chair Stephen Kent
Mailing list Address pem-dev@tis.com
To subscribe pem-dev-request@tis.com
Archive pem-dev-request@tis.com

Final Charter for Working Group

PEM is the outgrowth of work by the Privacy and Security
Research Group (PSRG) of the IRTF. At the heart of PEM is a set of
procedures for transforming RFC 822 messages in such a fashion as to
provide integrity, data origin authenticity, and, optionally,
confidentiality. PEM may be employed with either symmetric or
asymmetric cryptographic key distribution mechanisms. Because the
asymmetric (public-key) mechanisms are better suited to the large
scale, heterogeneously administered environment characteristic of the
Internet, to date only those mechanisms have been standardized. The
standard form adopted by PEM is largely a profile of the CCITT X.509
(Directory Authentication Framework) recommendation.

PEM is defined by a series of documents. The first in the
series defines the message processing procedures. The second defines
the public-key certification system adopted for use with PEM.
The third provides definitions and identifiers for various
algorithms used by PEM. The fourth defines message formats and conventions for
user registration, Certificate Revocation List (CRL) distribution,
etc. (The first three of these were previously issued as RFCs 1113,
1114 and 1115. All documents have been revised and are being issued
first as Internet-Drafts.)

Milestones

Date Milestone Associated documents
Apr 1993 Submit the PEM/MIME specification to the IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard.
Jul 1991 Revise Proposed Standards and submit to IESG for consideration as a Draft Standard, and repeat for consideration as an Internet Standard.

Done milestones

Date Milestone Associated documents
Done Submit first, third, and fourth documents as Internet-Drafts.
Done Post an Internet-Draft of the MIME/PEM Interaction specification.
Done Submit Internet-Drafts to IESG for consideration as Proposed Standards.
Done Submit revised Internet-Drafts based on comments received during working group meeting, from pem-dev mailing list, etc.
Done Submit second document as an Internet-Draft.
Done First IETF working group meeting to review Internet-Drafts.