[Trans] Closing out the SCT encoding discussion

[Melinda Shore <[e-mail]>]

Hi, all:

We've been banging away on the SCT encoding issue for a year,
and we really must close it out.  Paul and I have been doing due
diligence on the issue in the background.  We made a concerted effort
to find technical problems with the current text that would exclude the
possibility of allowing it in the -bis document.  Here's what we found:

1) The proposed encoding does not violate the letter of any
   specification that we can find,
2) Peter Gutmann said that it's not a good idea but it isn't
   incorrect,
3) We checked with the authors of several widely-used pieces of
   certificate processing software and in every case that person
   said that the proposed encoding would not cause problems with
   their code, and
4) We verified that the IETF security ADs would not reject the
   encoding during IESG review

Basically, in a nutshell, where we've landed is that while the current
encoding probably isn't the best idea ever, it doesn't violate any
specification that anybody could identify and it doesn't appear to
break anything.  So, it's going to stand.  We will not be revisiting
this issue unless new information is presented.  This includes
discussion at the upcoming meeting in Dallas.

Thanks,

Melinda and Paul