Subject: Re: PGP/MIME implementors: text mode vs. binary mode?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 11:06:18 -0700

From: Ulf =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=F6ller?= <[email-masked]>
> On Tue, Feb 13, 2001 at 03:59:37PM -0800, [email-masked] wrote:
>
> > I can tell you that on message receipt, the commercial versions of PGP
> > from Network Associates DO hash trailing whitespace on PGP/MIME messages.
> > That is, they are sensitive to the presence of trailing whitespace and
> > it is included in the hash.  This is true regardless of whether the
> > signature type byte is text or binary mode.  That may or may not be
> > compatible with the spec but that is how these versions work.
>
> Then why did you guys refuse to change the OpenPGP specification when
> the inconsistency was pointed out well before RFC 2440 was published?

First, my description above referred to the behavior of NAI's commercial
implementation of PGP on PGP/MIME messages.  RFC 2440 does not discuss
PGP/MIME messages, so it would not be appropriate to put such information
into RFC 2440.

Second, RFC 2440 is not perfect and does have errors.  These are not the
result of stubborn refusal to make changes and insistence on putting out
an imperfect draft.  Rather, mistakes are made in both the drafting and
editing process, and sometimes comments are overlooked.

Hal

---

From: Thomas Roessler <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 20:30:14 +0200

On 2001-04-14 11:06:18 -0700, [email-masked] wrote:

> First, my description above referred to the behavior of NAI's
> commercial implementation of PGP on PGP/MIME messages.  RFC 2440
> does not discuss PGP/MIME messages, so it would not be
> appropriate to put such information into RFC 2440.

PGP/MIME makes use of the OpenPGP format.  

It says very clearly what's the signed material, and that an OpenPGP
signatur is generated.  This means, of course, that no changes
should be done to the signed material beyond what the OpenPGP spec
mandates.

In particular, PGP/MIME does NOT define any new hash methods, or new
canonification methods to be performed by the back-end. It just
refers the reader to the OpenPGP (or PGP) specification for all
these points.

Thus, Ulf's question remains valid: If you follow the old behaviour
in one of the more important fields of application anyway, why on
earth didn't you make sure RFC 2440 and your applications followed
this kind of behaviour in general?  After all, he had indeed warned
of the inconsistency introduced by RFC 2440.

But, anyway, the new spec resolves this by prohibiting trailing
whitespace, which brings other problems, but seems to be the only
compatible way out of this mess.

-- 
Thomas Roessler			    <[email-masked]>