Bob Lord wrote:
> I'm beginning the process of writing up the Mozilla S/MIME PRD
> (Product Requirements Document).
Note that we have a patch for PGP support, that has been rejected
because the module owners were "too busy" and the patch was not generic
enough for their taste.
*I* would expect that somebody who wants to get S/MIME in by now would
create an infrastructure that works well for both PGP and S/MIME.
Ideally, this infrastrucure is not only of technical nature, but keeps
the differences and choice between PGP and S/MIME transparent to the
user. See thread <news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"PGP-support design", this group. Such transparency is good Mozilla
tradition, actually something were Mozilla is exemplationary good.
Compare http vs. ftp and mail vs. news.
As for myself, the treatment of the PGP patch made a *serious* dent into
my trust into the Mailnews owners (and to some degree mozilla.org, which
supported the decision). I am eagerly watching what the Mailnews owners
will do now.
> 1. What aspects of S/MIME in Communicator 4.7 are confusing, hard to
> use, or deploy?
Getting the certificate. In detail:
Cost
When I frist tried to get a cert (back in 1996/7 or so), I still
attended school and couldn't find an CA that issued certs cost-free.
Privacy
I still have problem to find a CA which I trust and which doesn't reveal
my cert data. I don't want my name and email-address in a huge,
(semi-)public database. Either there's a standard to check the validity
of the cert only if it is prooven that the one asking for the check does
already have my public cert or I don't want to allow these checks at
all. Unfortunately, most (if not all) CAs give me neither of these choices.
Time / Complexity
Applying for a cert is a complex procedure, which involves reading a lot
text (unless you ignorantly skip it). This can easily take a work-day.
Some of this "text" is a general introduction into S/MIME and its
security concept. If we want to make crypto in mail applicable for the
masses, we need to figure out a way to (optionally) hide all this
complexity from them and explain the rest of the security concept (the
part that we cannot hide, because it is inherent) and its implications
in a few sentences. Ideally, the user just selects a CA in the Mailnews
Account Wizard, Mozilla does all of the application, authentication and
cert import in the background and presents one dialog explaining what a
signed / encrypted mail implies (and what it doesn't) and warning to
keep the private cert secure.
Authentication method; PGP
Note that the authentication method that is probably intended as the
primary method - the authentication in person, with a official legal
paper like a passport, in a CA POP - is not applicable for the masses,
unless it gets strong support from other sources (like the government
pushing smart cards for citizens). The usual Netscape user won't go to a
CA POP, just to be able to sign/encrypt mails. For them, email
authentication is enough, because it ensures that the one Ben Bucksch
they know (via email) is always the same. That's why I think that PGP is
more suited for the masses. See also earlier thread about PGP vs. S/MIME.
> How might we improve them in this new version?
Drop S/MIME, use PGP ;-P.
ccing .mail-news
