Re[2]: Serious design flaw in STARTLS documents

I agree with John. I cannot see any advantage with (2), just risks.

/C-J
____________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject:    Re: Serious design flaw in STARTLS documents 
Author: Chris Newman <[email protected]>
Date:       4/22/98 3:31 PM

On Wed, 22 Apr 1998, John Myers wrote:
> Chris Newman wrote:
> > (1) STARTTLS is only permitted prior to authentication and always causes
> > new capability negotiations.
> > 
> > (2) STARTTLS is permitted at any time and has no effect on authentication
> > state.  Clients SHOULD re-issue the command for capabilities.
> 
> I think (1) is the correct answer.  You want to avoid having to do TLS
> ...
> 
> If you think you have a situation where active attacks aren't a problem,
> but privacy is, I think you've mis-identified your threat model.

I'm not convinced that such a threat model is non-existant, but I suppose
the added complexity of (2) isn't worth the gain in flexibility.  However, 
I'd like to hear from at least one other person before I go ahead and
document (1) in the next version of the IMAP/POP/ACAP TLS spec.

                - Chris