RFC 2634 (rfc2634) - Page 1 of 58

Enhanced Security Services for S/MIME

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Network Working Group                                P. Hoffman, Editor
Request for Comments: 2634                     Internet Mail Consortium
Category: Standards Track                                     June 1999


                 Enhanced Security Services for S/MIME

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

1. Introduction

   This document describes four optional security service extensions for
   S/MIME. The services are:

    - signed receipts
    - security labels
    - secure mailing lists
    - signing certificates

   The first three of these services provide functionality that is
   similar to the Message Security Protocol [MSP4], but are useful in
   many other environments, particularly business and finance. Signing
   certificates are useful in any environment where certificates might
   be transmitted with signed messages.

   The services described here are extensions to S/MIME version 3 ([MSG]
   and [CERT]), and some of them can also be added to S/MIME version 2
   [SMIME2]. The extensions described here will not cause an S/MIME
   version 3 recipient to be unable to read messages from an S/MIME
   version 2 sender. However, some of the extensions will cause messages
   created by an S/MIME version 3 sender to be unreadable by an S/MIME
   version 2 recipient.

   This document describes both the procedures and the attributes needed
   for the four services. Note that some of the attributes described in
   this document are quite useful in other contexts and should be
   considered when extending S/MIME or other CMS applications.




Hoffman                     Standards Track
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