when you say that the trend among the other RIRs is to go for X.509 certificates, could you please elaborate on what they are doing and how far they are?

Greetings all, Currently, ARIN is working toward deployment of X.509 as a strong authentication method for securing email template submissions. We expect implementation to occur later this year. After X.509 deployment for templates, ARIN will explore both the expansion of X.509 into other methods of interfacing with ARIN, as well as other strong authentication mechanisms. Regards, Tim Christensen Database Administrator American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) (703) 227 9876