"Enzo Michelangeli" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (or someone, the quoting makes it difficult to
tell) writes:
>If it may of any comfort (or perhaps enhanced desperation), the S/MIME
>community has similar headaches: in these days, the [EMAIL PROTECTED] list is
>debating whether, in S/MIME v.3, RSA should be made a MUST algorithm together
>with, or in alternative to, DSS and D-H. At this moment (RFC2630) neither RSA
>nor RC2 are MUST, so interoperability is not guaranteed with v.2 agents...
S/MIME interoperability is guaranteed because everyone ignores the RFC and does
RSA and RC2 (for backwards-compatiblity only) and 3DES first and everthing else
only if they have the time and/or budget. Actually barring the RC2/40 vs 3DES
duality imposed by export controls, S/MIME is a lot more interoperable than
PGP, and certainly for signed messages any S/MIME mailer can handle the output
of any other S/MIME mailer. OTOH I can't get different versions of PGP 2.x,
5.x, and 6.x to interoperate, which is why I'm one of the people who's sticking
to 2.x as the least painful option - although I have multiple versions
available of which at least one will eventually process a message if I try them
all in turn, most of the people I correspond with can't do this and 2.x
provides the best guarantee of interoperability.
Peter.
