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Re: [openpgp] Can the OpenPGP vs. S/MIME situation be fixed?

2016-07-02 10:09:12
Phillip Hallam-Baker <phill(_at_)hallambaker(_dot_)com> writes:

I have wanted this for a long time. there are actually three separate
problems to be solved.

1) How to make S/MIME work with OpenPGP credentials

2) How to make OpenPGP work with S/MIME credentials

3) How to merge the two specifications into one.

The first two are pretty easy, I've been doing that for years.  For S/MIME,
use the subjectKeyIdentifier form of the key ID.  For PGP, use an
issuerAndSerialNumber in a type-and-value subpacket.

The third is impossible.  While at an abstract level PGP and S/MIME do the
same thing, the bit-bagging formats used to encode the abstraction are
completely incompatible.  You can't make them compatible without either moving
S/MIME to the PGP format or PGP to the S/MIME format.  I can't see either of
those happening...

Peter.
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