Subject: Encrypt subject

From: Karl Kashofer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 12:28:03 +0100

Hi !

If I am in the wrong place, please advise me where to go.
Sorry if that has been discussed before, but non-searchable
list-archives are an abomination to the lord.

So:
I like PGP, and use it a lot in thunderbird+enigmail.
However, as has cropped up several times on the enigmail mailinglist, it
would be really nice to be able to hide the Subject: header of an email
inside the encrypted mail body.

Are there any ideas/proposals about this ?
It kind of makes no sense to encrypt the body if a lot of the info can
be gleaned from the subject.

It was suggested that one could include something like:
Header-Subject: mysubject
into the encrypted mail, and just get it out again after decryption.
I am sure if that could be put into a RFC of some sort it would be
adopted by clients pretty fast.

Ideas ? Discussion ?

Sorry if I bored you to death,
Cheers,
Karl

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From: Werner Koch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:20:20 +0200

> inside the encrypted mail body.

Simply send your mail as an encrypted message/rfc2822 MIME message and
put an innocent subject into the header.

Whether it is useful to decrypt all mails to see just the subject is a
different question, though.  I use memonic subjects without any
relation to the actual content; this helps to mentally sort such
messages.

Salam-Shalom,

   Werner

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From: "Greg Sabino Mullane" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 13:09:27 -0000

> be gleaned from the subject.

True enough - so don't put any important information into the subject. Just
use something standard like "Re: your mail" or use the output of M-x spook if
you are feeling mischievous.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane [email-masked]
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200508310906
https://www.biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8

---

From: Karl Kashofer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:11:34 +0100

Hi Werner !

> relation to the actual content; this helps to mentally sort such

Isn't that an ugly workaround ?

I know the Subject: is a header and is not part of the message body, but
I am sure most people use PGP as transport security, once the email is
here on my laptop it can be permanently decrypted.

It cant be that hard to put the subject into the body before encryption,
and get it out again after decryption can it ?

Or are there any conceptual issues I am missing ?

Cheers,
Karl

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From: Karl Kashofer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:26:58 +0100

Hi !

> you are feeling mischievous.

Well that deprives me of the advantages of having a Subject: line.
(i.e. meaningful listing in email client, sorting and searching,...)

It cant be that the answer to this is "Dont use it." ?

We have Comment: and Hash: lines inside the PGP markers, why cant we
have Subject: ?

I think this is a shortcoming of PGP email encryption and should be
fixed, dont you ?

Cheers,
Karl