ietf-openpgp
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Re: OpenPGP vs. OpenPGP/MIME

2002-01-24 15:40:40

David Shaw <dshaw(_at_)akamai(_dot_)com> writes:

I stopped using it when I found myself in a corporate environment
where the majority of people were using various corporate mailers that
blew up in various odd ways with it.  I'm sure this isn't a PGP/MIME
thing - they'd have blown up with any MIME they didn't understand, but
while a regular clearsigned signature can be ignored by those people
that either don't care or don't use PGP, a PGP/MIME message does not
always degrade quite so gracefully.

I think you just pretty well described what Jon meant by PGP/MIME
often not working in practice, whereas OpenPGP usually does work.

I agree with Jon's opinion.  PGP/MIME interoperability is bad.  I
believe it is the design of RFC 1847 that makes interoperability low.
I'm even considering arguing for the solution chosen by Outlook PGP
plugins when it comes to PGP and MIME, just PGP encrypt each MIME part
without touching the MIME headers at all.  That solution _works_, even
though it is ugly and bad and wrong from a engineering point of view.


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