Format of signed-and-encrypted documents

Kurt Fitzner kurt-fitzner@home.com
Mon Jul 2 23:33:02 2001


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Hi,

Not so complicated a question. :)

Messages are signed first, and then the signature and message both encrypted.

The reasoning is that if you are encrypting something, you may not want the
world to know who it's from.

Look at it this way, you are not going to encrypt something, publish it, and
then want people to be able to tell that this encrypted document came from
you.  Who cares?  It's encrypted, they can't read it anyway.

So, since it doesn't make sense that anyone would WANT to be able to have the
world verify that an encrypted document originated with themself, and people
MAY not want anyone (besides the intended receivers) to know who sent it, the
signature of encrypted documents was encapsulated inside the encryption.

        Kurt.


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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)

iQEcBAEBAwAGBQI7QOa7AAoJEN366Kf2Ie2tWKoH/iuXRv+Tp28FEyTAsFiWDRGd
pF6Pzov1j7JpdANV7V0NRtPD99H0EW1dHiFYUUkyQW0sezuAdPxda1WUsuYlH6fk
ZsxtCwrJQKW/SMydpWZs0P6ubbeag9QtaEFygrxovIBt1T8lJx8yzLO/eDOB5FH6
ELShKFWwqW4wPshwO9+zugqDuMRfp75zTrWWQVjaRSbma5bH9LWbqfEGi0JVf9uG
LcT4iJEbf4c7s2TYJhmqSAogXk9UJuLdhQwtgDnb5oIFNvt/clveU53JZ5p1I67q
ZIPP+QFd7wnr/4CAOGBx1fUTM8yv9a0Jkh83TknwvaKLnqp6xln5orkjc/bNz1I=
=2Y9m
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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