Hi, I'll have to agree with Måns; forcing X.509 handling and software as the only option for securing e-mail with the registration services mailboxes onto the LIR community is not something I see as particularly welcome. Today the LIRs have the option of securing communication with auto-dbm using PGP. This means that there is some deployment in the LIR community for using PGP already. Thus, I'm puzzled why the option of continuing to use PGP with the registration services mailboxes (hostmaster@ripe.net etc.) is not on the table as options. Yes, I can see there would be problems, but I have not seen any discussion which makes it clear why these problems are insurmountable (and I doubt they are). I'll admit that I'm not familiar with usage of S/MIME in e-mail, so I don't know how invasive usage of that is going to be. However, it seems clear to me that if introduction of S/MIME and X.509 will impose restrictions on what e-mail clients can be used, one is intruding on an area where there may be emotional reactions, and the proposal as it stands does not really address those issues. I'll concede, though, that on the WEB, it would seem that X.509 usage in the form of https is the only viable option, but then again, that's not what we're discussing here, right? Regards, - Håvard