ietf-smime
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Re: application/mime and binary data

1997-07-28 08:54:41
At 2:21 PM -0400 7/25/97, John Gardiner Myers wrote:
I definitely understand that some modificaiton or exception to the "no
recursive encodings" rule of MIME is necessary to support digital
signatures.  I currently would prefer a more limited appliation/signed
type (application/signed being identical to multipart/signed except for
the lack of transfer encoding restrictions and default handling) but
could be convinced of the need for the more general type.

So what you're proposing is a way to "cheat" MIME.

You're proposing the creation of a content type under "application" that
has all the advantages and features of a "multipart" but without the one
disadvantage that digital signatures have surfaced: "no recursive
encodings".

Perhaps I'm too much of a purist but this just doesn't seem right to me,
although if the MIME community "buys" it I won't filibuster (or perhaps I
should have said "IMAP community").

Jim

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