X500Standard.com

There are two amendments planned to be part of the 7th edition of the X.500 Specifications.

They have the official titles:

• (X.500-series,) Amd.1, Information technology – The Directory – Amendment 1: Communication Support Enhancement
• (X.500-series,) Amd.2, Information technology – The Directory – Amendment 2: Password Policy Support

Password Policy Support for the directory

Password policy is an extension to X.500 which is planned to be part of the seventh edition of X.500.

This work is now at 2nd PDAM status within ISO/IEC and the PDAM ballot will close on the 28 July 2010. The 2nd PDAM text may be found here.

Please submit comments through the ISO National Body or put comments on the list.

Password policy is a set of rules that controls how passwords are used and administered in the Directory. It improves the security of the Directory and makes it difficult for password cracking programs to break into the Directory. These rules ensure that users change their passwords periodically, that passwords meet quality requirements, that re-use of old password is restricted, etc.

Communications Support Enhancement

A extension on Communications Support Enhancement has been produced and is part of the sixth edition.

Due to a program split within ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6 and due to a approved Action Plan within ITU-T we are able to continue work on communications enhancement, both for the X.500 itself, but also for the support it might provide for other specifications.

Possible work items are:

• To enhance interworking with LDAP
• Extend the support for tag-based applications.
• Make provision for other ASN.1 encoding rules than BER.

The text is not out on PDAM ballot. This ballot closes 16 September 2010. Please submit comments through the ISO National Body or put comments on the list.

The PDAM text may be found here. In addition, a subset of the PDAM covering X.500/LDAP support for RFID is available here.