From: Raph Levien <s_levien@research.att.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 23:41:00 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Clueless "Attachment converted" uses
Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.3.93.3.960715163006.21363B-100000@asparagus.research.att.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Simon Spero wrote:
> 
> On a very similar note - could people who are using clear-text PGP
> signatures with mime use text/... instead of application/...; that way
> people without pgp will see the message text without having to mess with
> their mailcaps (that's the way text/* is supposed to work)

I'd hate to turn this into "e-mail encryption"-punks, but I believe that 
clear-signed PGP messages should not have MIME types at all. Here's why:

1. All PGP-aware mail reading programs can recognize MIMEless PGP 
messages. Thus, adding the MIME type does not help.

2. For all mailers that are not PGP-aware, the best way to handle 
clearsigned messages is to cut-and-paste them to a PGP window. This is 
most easily done if the message is simply displayed as text. Thus, 
adding the MIME type does not help.

3. There _is_ a PGP/MIME standard, and these clearsigned PGP messages do 
not conform to it.

ObPlug: premail, I believe, implements the correct policy. Some messages 
need to be in MIME format (e.g. pictures). These messages are encoded 
using the real PGP/MIME spec. Other messages do not. These are encoded 
using plain PGP, and no MIME gorp.

There is a small bug in 0.44, by the way, that causes messages with tabs 
to be wrongly classified as needing MIME.

Just my two cents.

Raph