An Open Specification for Pretty Good Privacy (openpgp)

This Working Group Did Not Meet

NOTE: This charter is a snapshot of the 48th IETF Meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It may now be out-of-date. Last Modified: 17-Apr-00

Chair(s):

John Noerenberg <jwn2@qualcomm.com>

Security Area Director(s):

Jeffrey Schiller <jis@mit.edu>
Marcus Leech <mleech@nortelnetworks.com>

Security Area Advisor:

Jeffrey Schiller <jis@mit.edu>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion:ietf-openpgp@imc.org
To Subscribe: ietf-openpgp-request@imc.org
In Body: Only the word subscribe
Archive: http://www.imc.org/ietf-open-pgp/mail-archive/

Description of Working Group:

PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, first appeared on the Internet in 1991. It has enjoyed significant popularity amongst the Internet Community.

PGP is used both for protecting E-mail and File Storage. It presents a way to digitally sign and encrypt information "objects." As such it is well suited for any store and forward application.

The goal of the OpenPGP working group is to provide IETF standards for the algorithms and formats of PGP processed objects as well as providing the MIME framework for exchanging them via e-mail or other transport protocols.

Because there is a significant installed base of PGP users, the working group will consider compatibilty issues to avoid disenfranchising the existing community of PGP users.

Security Issues:

The whole purpose of Open-PGP is to provide security services.

Goals and Milestones:

Done		Submit Internet-Draft for PGP Key Format & Message Specification
Done		Submit Internet Draft for MIME encapsulation of PGP Messages Specification
Done		Issue WG Last Call for PGP Key Format & Message Specification Internet-Draft documents
Done		Submit PGP Key Format & Message Specification Internet-Draft to IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard.

Internet-Drafts:

· Multiple Signatures using Security Multiparts

· MIME Security with OpenPGP

Request For Comments:

RFC	Status	Title
RFC2440	PS	OpenPGP Message Format