[6368] in SIPB bug reports
Re: exmh bug
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chris Shabsin)
Mon Jun 2 10:41:09 1997
To: Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>
Cc: Nathan J Williams <nathanw@MIT.EDU>, Kev <klmitch@MIT.EDU>,
"Jacob Morzinski" <jmorzins@MIT.EDU>, bug-sipb@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of 02 Jun 1997 10:32:18 -0400.
<sjmpvu5xeh9.fsf@charon.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 10:38:41 EDT
From: Chris Shabsin <shabby@MIT.EDU>
Well, the PGP/MIME standard is irrelevant in this case, since last I
checked, the version of exmh installed in the sipb locker uses an
obsolete pgp mime standard, using the application/pgp mime type
instead of whatever the newer version is. (and when i was on the exmh
users mailing list several people made it somewhat clear that this was
the case...)
As far as I know the real problem is that pine and other
mime-compliant mailers won't show the raw text of the message when it
fails to comprehend "application/exmh"...
|> No, it's not a bug. The PGP/MIME standard is the new standard that
|> the PGP Community is _trying_ to move towards. The newer versions of
|> PGP will support PGP/MIME. Older versions (like 2.6.2) need helper
|> apps (which are available) to decode the PGP/MIME protocol.
unless i blinked and missed an announcement somewhere, the version of
exmh currently installed in the sipb locker is at least a year old.
|> > They should be able to read it, although they probably cannot
|> > verify the signature unless they have a PGP/MIME reader. Send
|> > a signed message to yourself and try reading it without exmh.
|> >
|> > Sort of defeats the purpose to send a message that can't be
|> > verified, no? While using MIME for PGP seems like a generally-good
|> > idea, not being able to interoperate with older/less featureful mail
|> > readers and PGP systems should be considered a bug in exmh's PGP
|> > handling.
actually, it should be possible to simply verify the signature in the
mail sent by exmh with an older version of pgp.
I've been meaning for some time to look into the new version of exmh
and just haven't been able to get around to it. This may have the
problems nathan speaks of, but given derek's statements it's probably
a good tradeoff to be using the newer standard. With luck there'll
even be an access path to the older pgp mail format in the new version
of exmh.
--------
-Chris Shabsin -shabby@mit.edu
-member, SIPB, PWLCSBHNM, VWA, LSC, LSI, DI, MIT OS/2 UG
echo Prpv a\'rfg cnf har cvcr | tr '[A-Za-z]' '[N-ZA-Mn-za-m]'
