message signature types

[Charly Avital]

auto15963931 <jv92pc$ct5$1 at dough.gmane.org> July 31, 2012 2:47:22 PM wrote:
> If this is the wrong place to ask, please point me in the right
> direction. Where can I learn more about importing, if such a thing is
> even done this way, and making use of message signatures which utilize
> an "smime.p7s" file? I got a message from someone who uses this, and I
> need to learn about verifying and downloading from a keyserver files
> like this. Especially important for me is learning how to check whether
> it had been revoked, etc.  Where is a support group for this sort of
> signature if this is not it? Thanks.

S/MIME = Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions is a standard for
public key encryption and signing of e-mail encapsulated in MIME.

It achieves goals that are similar to GnuPG's but uses different means.

The use of GnuPG requires the installation of GnuPG software, and some
kind of module that will enable interaction between that software and
the e-mail client one is using. GnuPG per se enables its user to
generate and manage certificates (aka keys).

S/MIME does not require the installation of any such software but needs
to obtain and install a certificate/key that is issued by a Certificate
Authority (CA). The certificate that is issued by the CA of your choice
has to be imported into your e-mail client (if it has S/MIME capability)
or into your browser.

You might try <http://www.comodo.com>.

I am sure members of this list will provide more accurate information.

Charly
OS X 10.8 (12A269}  MacBook Intel C2Duo 2GHz-GnuPG 1.4.12-MacGPG2-2.0.17-9
Thunderbird 14.0 Enigmail 1.5a1pre (20120727-2257)