On Tue, Jan 21, 2003, Peter Hendriks wrote: > Want to create "strong" certificates for e-mail exchange with Outlook > Express 6.0 SP1. Using OpenSSL 0.9.7, dos port, downloaded the binary. I > don't have a compiler... > > I'm able to create the root cert, and the user certs. However Outlook > Express shows a message that a 40 bit RC2 encryption is used, while it can > handle 168 bit cets. > > Help would be VERY welcome, I spend countless hours in figuring out how to > get this to work and I feel a little frustrated. I must be so close, yet it > seems so far away :-( >
It doesn't have anything to do with the certificates which will typically have 1024 bit keys... Normal S/MIME email clients (like Outlook) will only send messages encrypted using a cipher the recipient can read. So if the recipient only supports 40 bit RC2 thats all it will use. If the sender only supports 40 bits it will only use that too. The capabilities of each recipient are passed when a signed email is exchanged. Check both sides have the 128 bit security patch applied: see the "about" box of MSIE. If not then apply the patch, make sure you have 128 bit security then exchange signed emails again. Steve. -- Dr. Stephen Henson [EMAIL PROTECTED] OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org/~steve/ ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Automated List Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED]
