Kent,
Well, how about this? Opposite sides of the fence...
At 04:47 PM 11/21/97 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:
It is quite possible that
"simple" mailers will persist for another 10 or more years.
This is certain to be true, but is a likelihood which needs to be used
carefully. For example, why project that the MUA will be unchanged but
that fancy new encryption sofware will be added? More importantly, why
jerk the standards specification around to accomodate that particular
scenario? If they want new security technology, why is it unreasonable to
require that relevant additional capabilities be added.
file to a user. How do I leave an encrypted file on disk so it can
be sent?
This line of question is based on the possibility that MIME formatting is
somehow meaningfully different from PGP amouring. With respect to this
line of question, it isn't.
The claim is that PGP has uses independent of the net [so IETF
standardization?] -- that is, independent of the problem of
transmitting data securely over the net; and it really may be that
The IETF does interchange standards, not file standards.
MIME is not the best way to support *those* uses.
The sun might not come up tomorrow, to. "Might" is a mighty weak approach
to debating technical choices. If there is a specific problem with MIME
for specific situations, let's hear about them and look at them.
Across the many messages on this topic, the arguments for retaining
amouring seem to be using cases which are irrelevant to IETF work, matters
of unfounded fantasy, or based on errors.
All in all, this is getting to be rather frustrating.
I am not an expert in either MIME or PGP, so I may just be blowing
smoke.
Gad, what an opening. I appreciate the opportunity, Kent, except for the
effort needed to skip rise above it...
In particular, what format would MIME leave encrypted files on disk so
my above simple archaic email example would work? How well does MIME
work with stored objects? How does the MIME standard actually deal with
stored objects?
MIME is not about storage, it is about transmission. In any event, if you
need information about MIME, I encourage you to read the relevant RFCs and
learn about it. It's remarkably difficult to condut a debate in which one
of the sides is not familiar with basic facts. (On the other hand, it's
pretty easy when BOTH sides are ignorant...)
d/
--------------------
Dave Crocker
dcrocker(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
Internet Mail Consortium +1 408 246 8253
675 Spruce Dr. fax: +1 408 249 6205
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