ietf-openpgp
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Re: PGP/MIME: Time for last call?

2000-05-23 01:27:35
On Mon, 22 May 2000, Thomas Roessler <roessler(_at_)guug(_dot_)de> wrote:
On 2000-05-11 09:44:28 +0100, Ian Bell wrote:

1) Simply state the problem, and indicate that for
   one-pass processing, two hashes will have to be
   prepared - one for binary-mode signatures and one
   for text-mode signatures.

2) Mandate which form of signature must be used.
   Trailing spaces are often significant in email/news
   (sig-seps, RFC2646), so a binary-mode signature
   might seem preferable. However, existing PGP/MIME
   clients may be using either.

3) Define a "pgp-mode" parameter, pgp-mode=binary or
   pgp-mode=text and ensure that new clients add the
   parameter to the multipart/signed header. If the
   parameter is missing (RFC2015 messages), then
   one-pass clients will have to prepare two hashes.

Well...  As a fourth possibility, we could mandate that
any trailing whitespace within body parts should lead to
the use of quoted-printable or base64, thus effectively
working around the problem.  However, this is _not_
currently mandated by RFC 1847.

Mandating quoted-printable just as a workround for a sig-mode problem seems a little of a kludge - 3) still seems to me the solution that fits best with the aims of RFC1847.

[However, Turnpike already forces its PGP-signed messages into quoted-printable so that trailing-space corruption and Berkeley-From corruption problems are avoided]

--
Ian Bell                                           T U R N P I K E  Ltd

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