Proposed Recharter of IETF PKIX
The IESG secretary has announced a proposed recharter of the IETF PKIX working group.
The PKIX Working Group was established in the fall of 1995 with the goal of developing Internet standards to support X.509-based Public Key Infrastructures (PKIs). Initially PKIX pursued this goal by profiling X.509 standards… most PKIX-generated RFCs are no longer profiles of ITU-T X.509 documents.
PKIX is now seeking to redefine itself not solely by its profiling of ITU-T standards, but also developing standards that are useful for PKI and related systems.
An example of this type of RFC is the informational RFC 4158, Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure: Certification Path Building, which I co-authored and edited. It fills a need not expressed by any ITU standard document—providing useful information to the developers of a certification path building system. The IESG’s recommendation to change the PKIX working group charter is welcome, perhaps a little overdue.
