ietf-openpgp
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Re: Further deprecating PGP2

2003-03-11 11:09:56


On Tuesday, Mar 11, 2003, at 12:24 US/Eastern, Derek Atkins wrote:
"An OpenPGP MAY support decryption of IDEA-encrypted messages but MUST
NOT generate them."

I wouldn't say MUST NOT generate; I think it's a bit too strong.
Generally, MUST NOT is used when using something would be detrimental
(e.g. it would be a security problem, or cause immeasurable interop
problems).  For example, one MUST NOT use "rot13" encryption.  I don't
see why supporting/using IDEA falls into this category.  Therefore, I
would say "SHOULD NOT encrypt using IDEA".  Is there some technical
reason why IDEA "MUST NOT" be used?

You are right of course.

Killing of the sending of IDEA-encrypted messages also addresses my
concern: I will be able to decrypt any OpenPGP message sent to me
without being legally required to pay IDEA licensing fees. And Derek
can keep reading his existing mail.

I think MAY decrypt and SHOULD NOT encrypt gets you the same thing,
without making PGP.Com's implementation non-compliant for wanting to
support older algorithms.

Yes.

Basically I want a tool that will walk through my email messages and
every time it finds a PGP block inside the message it replaces that
PGP block with a new PGP block which is a re-encrypted version. In other
words, it looks for files that look like:

        blah blah blah
        ----- BEGIN PGP MESSAGE -----
        [radix64 snipped]
        ----- END PGP MESSAGE ----
        blah blah blah

And replaces it with:

        blah blah blah
        ----- BEGIN PGP MESSAGE -----
        [re-encrypted message in radix64 snipped]
        ----- END PGP MESSAGE -----
        blah blah blah

I'll give you extra points if the timestamp on the message is not changed.
;)

How are the messages stored?

-J


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