Windows-PGP/Linux-GnuPG mails compatibility issues

Graham graham.todd@ntlworld.com
Mon Jun 10 15:09:02 2002


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Virginie wrote:
| Hello Simon !
|
|  On Sun, 09 Jun 2002 19:09:37 +0200, Simon wrote :
|
|  > Are you sure it is RFC 2015/3156 compatible?  Most Outlook PGP plugins
|  > aren't.
|
| Not sure at all... I took a look at these URLs as reference, and still
| have some misunderstanding about outlook capabilities :b
|
| http://cryptorights.org/pgp-users/pgp-mail-clients.html
| http://www.spinnaker.de/mutt/rfc2015.html
| -> "MS Outlook Express (A rumor says, that it can handle RFC2015 with
| the Plugins which come with PGP, but I know nobody, who got this
| working)."
|
| I've made a few tests with a friend using PGP6(including plugin for
| outlook) on Windows XP+Outlook express and none of the methods (Inline
| or MIME, with or without signatures) I tried friendly works :(

That is principally because there is no version of PGP in Windows that
is XP compatible, because NAI stopped supporting it before an XP version
was released.  It MIGHT work with XP but that doesn't mean it will work
in all aspects. Plugins that come with PGP 7.x are the only ones stated
by NAI to support PGP/MIME to RFC 2015.  PGP 7.x has not been issued
with any source code and has had an SDK issued which most observers say
cannot be used by third party vendors to write plugins for PGP 7.x,
consequently the only ones available are written by NAI who no longer
support them.

PGP 6.x (expecially PGP 6.5.8) was released with plugins that were not
PGP/MIME compatible to RFC2015, because the RFC had not been agreed at
that time.  It is, however, the last version which had an SDK issued so
that third party vendors could write PGP plugins, and that is why so
many support it.  But it does not produce PGP/MIME in the mailer to RFC2015.

So it is better not to use PGP/MIME when using XP anyway, and far from
certain that the PGP/MIME with any version of PGP will be RFC2015
compliant.  And as PGP/MIME is a function of the mailer, not of PGP,
ONLY use PGP/MIME where you are CERTAIN that the recipient's mailer is
RFC2015 compatible.

That, as far as I am concerned, means using PGP/MIME only with Becky2
users with the PGPB2 plugin in Windows and using PGP 6.5.9 or PGP
6.5.8ckt.  Other than that, use PGP/GPG coding inline.


- --

Regards
Graham

GPG Key ID E935DB9D

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