Well this accident is needed! Using message/pem-clear does not
completely solve the gateway problem. If a message/PEM-Clear content
reaches a gateway and must be downconverted from 8 bit to 7, the
gateway is compelled to bounce the message. Message/* type cannot be
encoded with anything but 7 bit, 8 bit or binary and the whole intent
of the content type message/pem-clear is to prevent the gateway from
recursing though the data.
I wasn't aware that message/ was special. I guess some accidents are
good. :-)
The current proposal deals well with this problem by making integrity
checked message intentionally not readable by a non-PEM aware gateways
or MIME readers. But by doing this, it throws out the more important
goal of MIME/PEM <=> MIME interworking! If I send an Integrity checked
message to you, if you do not have a PEM aware implementation, you
can't read it!!
I don't why you are making this assertion. As I recall, with application/
C-Ts, the MIME mailer should, if it doesn't know the C-T, just save
the part as a 8 bit file... which in the MIC-ONLY case may be easily
viewed. Presumably, a good mailer should offer the option to display
the item as well, which will also allow the user to read it.
-Ray