Draft Charter -- Please review and comment

Charter for TLS (Transport Layer Security) WG:

Current status:  drafts

Chair(s):  TBD

Security Area Director(s):
	Jeffrey Schiller  <jis@mit.edu>

Mailing lists:
	General discussion:	ietf-tls@w3.org
	To subscribe:		ietf-tls-request@w3.org
	Archive:		
 

Description and charter of the TLC Working Group:

Several methods of providing a secure and authenticated channel between 
a client and a server on the Internet above the TCP layer have appeared. 
The objective of this proposed working group is to write standards track 
RFC(s) for protocols using the currently available Internet drafts as a 
basis.  The SSL, PCT and SSH protocols are examples of mechanisms of 
establishing a secure channel for general purpose or special purpose 
Internet applications running over a reliable transport, TCP in the most 
part.

The TLS working group is a focused effort on providing security features 
at the transport layer, rather than general purpose security and key 
management mechanisms.  The standard track protocol specification will 
provide  a method of implementing privacy, authentication and integrity 
above the transport layer.

The work currently under way in the area of secure IP is outside the 
scope of this working group. Also, general authentication mechanism 
discussions are outside the focus of this group. However, best efforts 
will be made to utilize as much as possible of the already existing 
technologies and methodologies in the IETF and other places to solve 
common problems, for example key management.

An informational RFC might also be issued to describe conventions for 
the interface to a Socket (or transport) layer secure library to build 
specific applications as well as TCP port number conventions for running 
secure versions of network applications.
 
Goals and Milestones

March 96 Agreement on charter and issues in current draft.

July 96	 Final draft for Secure Transport Layer Protocol   "STLP"

Nov 96	 Working group "Last Call"

Dec 96	 Offer to IESG for IETF "Last Call"


-- 
Taher Elgamal	    elgamal@netscape,com
Chief Scientist, Netscape Communications
(T) 415 528 2898, (F) 415 528 4122

Received on Monday, 11 March 1996 12:41:07 UTC