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Re: New Draft... going forward
In <19971020110635.45746@xxxxxxxxxx>, on 10/20/97
at 01, Michael Elkins <michael@xxxxxxx> said:
>On Mon, Oct 20, 1997 at 01:13:59PM +0000, Lutz Donnerhacke wrote: > *
>Thomas Roessler wrote:
>> >Lutz Donnerhacke wrote:
>> [Allowing direct MIME encoding of the PGP octet stream]
>>
>> >From RFC 2015:
>> > PGP can generate either ASCII armor (described in [3]) or
>> > 8-bit binary output when encrypting data, generating a
>> > digital signature, or extracting public key data. The ASCII
>> > armor output is the REQUIRED method for data transfer. This
>> > allows those users who do not have the means to interpret
>> > the formats described in this document to be able extract
>> > and use the PGP information in the message.
>> >
>> >To me, this sounds reasonable.
>>
>> Sure, but if software is unable to deal with MIME, the user do have other
>> problems than PGP. Even RfC 2015 requires MIME compilant software to deal
>> with digital signatures. So the other part does not harm that much. It is
>> still possible to pipe a base64 encoded message through a decoder and into
>> pgp-compilant software. The only difference is, that today pgp messages
>> without MIME headers must be piped through pgp alone.
>>
>> In short: Ascii Armor is outdated.
>The primary reason ascii armor was chosen was for the case of encrypted
>messages. The way RFC2015 is currently worded, a non-MIME mail user can
>simply pipe the whole message to pgp and everything will work just fine
>without the need for any additional software. It also makes even
>MIME-compliant software easier to write.
I have to agree here, so long as there is a *large* userbase of 2.6.x
users Ascii Armor is far from outdated. I see very little advantage here
of switching from Ascii Armor to Base64 other than adding one more PITA
for backward compatibility.
--
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William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0
Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html
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