Re: A brief comparison of email encryption protocols

Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no
Tue, 20 Feb 1996 10:08:31 +0100

> "Housley, Russ":

> In fact, MOSS is too flexible.  In most circumstances, signatures should be 
> performed before encryption.  MOSS allows people to sign ciphertext, by 
> putting a multipart/encrypted inside a multipart/signed.  The MOSS 
> specification offers no warnings about this "feature."

Russ,
could you give your reasoning for saying that this is a bug, not a feature?
I could imagine some (weird) scenarios where I'd want to sign ciphertext,
for instance if I wanted to sign to the fact that I'd passed on someone
else's encrypted messages.
Look at the comp.os.linux.announce newsgroup for a case where one person
is PGP-signing messages that someone else sent - people will use this stuff
in ways I can't even imagine.

that said, an applicability statement for MOSS, saying what is or is not a 
good idea, might be a Good Thing.

                    Harald A