Review for media types: application/ibe-pp-data, application/ibe-key-request+xml, and application/ibe-pkg-reply+xml

[Luther Martin]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mark at coactus.com [mailto:mark at coactus.com] On Behalf Of Mark
> Baker
> > This is certainly true, but they do define media types for
> cryptographic keys and related information, which is the proposed use
> of application/ibe-key-request and application/ibe-pkg-reply. The
> application/ibe-key-request is used much like the application/pkcs10
> and the application/ibe-pkg-reply is used much like an
> application/pkcs7-mime type: the first of the two is used for a
> certificate signing request and the second is used for the resulting
> certificate. In the case of this draft, one media type is used for a
> private key request and another for the resulting private key.
>
> I understand that there are similarities.  My concern regards one of
> the differences.

I guess that I just don't understand your concern about the differences.

The contents of a application/pkcs10 message are a public key and an identity.

In the case of IBE, the public key is the identity, so the content of the proposed application/ibe-key-request is really just a subset of what's encoded with application/pkcs10. (It's not-self signed, etc., but that's really a minor difference.)

What's the fundamental difference between these two that warrants greatly different processing?