Re: Bad Armour Headers

[David Shaw <dshaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Jan 07, 2006 at 02:17:07PM +0000, Ian G wrote:
> David Shaw wrote:
> ...
> >>but, as Ian pointed out, if the maximum number of columns is 
> >>limited to the minimum number of columns in an armored message 
> >>(i.e., 64 characters)
> >>then any 'wrap' that accepts the message block, would have no 
> >>problems
> >>with the comment or version lines,
> >
> >
> >That is not true.  Armor does not allow spaces, so it's essentially a
> >64 character long "word".  Most editors only break on spaces.  They
> >won't break words to wrap them.
> 
> The operative word there is 'most'.  In email
> for example, URLs that go over the length limit
> are often sliced, hence some people send "tiny"
> URLs.
> 
> Also, there is another artifact.  Even if the
> transporting app doesn't slice your armour lines
> in half, it may insert extra lines or spaces as
> if it was slicing it in half.

But again, it "may" also insert free-email ads in the middle or
pdf-ize the whole thing, or helpfully reformat into one long line.
Who is to say it can't?

So yes, "most" is indeed the operative word.  If a new form of
corruption doesn't reach the most level, then this is a treadmill I'm
very reluctant to get on.  For every potential brokenness we
conjecture and accomodate for, there will be some new form of mangling
that comes along.

David