In <19971020110635(_dot_)45746(_at_)la(_dot_)tis(_dot_)com>, on 10/20/97
at 01, Michael Elkins <michael(_at_)tis(_dot_)com> said:
On Mon, Oct 20, 1997 at 01:13:59PM +0000, Lutz Donnerhacke wrote: > *
Thomas Roessler wrote:
Lutz Donnerhacke wrote:
[Allowing direct MIME encoding of the PGP octet stream]
From RFC 2015:
PGP can generate either ASCII armor (described in [3]) or
8-bit binary output when encrypting data, generating a
digital signature, or extracting public key data. The ASCII
armor output is the REQUIRED method for data transfer. This
allows those users who do not have the means to interpret
the formats described in this document to be able extract
and use the PGP information in the message.
To me, this sounds reasonable.
Sure, but if software is unable to deal with MIME, the user do have other
problems than PGP. Even RfC 2015 requires MIME compilant software to deal
with digital signatures. So the other part does not harm that much. It is
still possible to pipe a base64 encoded message through a decoder and into
pgp-compilant software. The only difference is, that today pgp messages
without MIME headers must be piped through pgp alone.
In short: Ascii Armor is outdated.
The primary reason ascii armor was chosen was for the case of encrypted
messages. The way RFC2015 is currently worded, a non-MIME mail user can
simply pipe the whole message to pgp and everything will work just fine
without the need for any additional software. It also makes even
MIME-compliant software easier to write.
I have to agree here, so long as there is a *large* userbase of 2.6.x
users Ascii Armor is far from outdated. I see very little advantage here
of switching from Ascii Armor to Base64 other than adding one more PITA
for backward compatibility.
--
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William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0
Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html
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