ietf-openpgp
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Re: Multiple OpenPGP messages per file: legal or not?

2007-10-07 19:18:51

On Sun, Oct 07, 2007 at 11:41:25PM +0100, Rachel Willmer wrote:

If (d) "out of scope", which spec does define file formats?

If the answer is "there isn't one which does", how do we plan to do
interoperability between applications which use the OpenPGP packet
format? e.g. to transfer Encrypted Messages.

I didn't quite mean "out of scope" in that sense.  I meant "the spec
doesn't mandate it or forbid it, so it's up to the implemention to
decide."  As you saw, GPG doesn't do it.

Is there an implicit assumption in the spec that Message = File?

Not exactly.  The spec just defines bytes in a particular order.
Those bytes could be an array in memory, a file, a stream over a
network, etc, and the spec doesn't really care.  That said, the spec
does pretty much say that a file is one of the possible carriers of
those bytes.

David