Fwd: crypto flaw in secure mail standards

[Anthony E. Greene]

On Sun, 24 Jun 2001, David Shaw wrote:
>Mr. Davis's paper points out that OpenPGP (and hence GnuPG) signs and
>encrypts documents by essentially clearsigning the document, then
>wrapping the clearsigned document in a layer of encryption.
>
>It is thus possible for Alice to send a signed and encrypted mail to
>Bob, Bob decrypts it, recovering the clearsigned message, and then
>re-encrypts it to Charlie.  Charlie will receive the original document
>with Alice's signature intact.

The encryption in this example is beside the point and in fact is a
distraction to the primary argument; that signed data can be taken out of
context, given sufficiently vague data and a forgeable delivery mechanism.

>It is an interesting attack, but it is really more of a social attack
>than a crypto attack.

Agreed.


Tony
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