Subject: Re: New packets in PGP 6.0

From: Hal Finney <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 08:00:32 -0700

One thing more: PGP 6.0 has an option to export key packets in backwards
compatible format, which will produce OpenPGP compliant messages.  This
will strip off the Attribute ID packets.  So there is still an OpenPGP
compliant mode.

Hal

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From: "William H. Geiger III" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 11:09:49 -0500

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In <[email-masked]>, on 09/09/98 

>will strip off the Attribute ID packets.  So there is still an OpenPGP

Well, part of the problem we are going to have here is once these new keys
get uploaded to to the keyservers. It is my understanding that these new
packets will break 5.x version of PGP.

One approach would be to strip off these packets before they are accepted
to the keyservers. The other would be to add a PGP Version option to the
keyserver interface and have the server strip any non-compatiable packets
from the keys.

I have already written a utility that will strip the 5.x packets from
2.6.x keys. It would be simple enough to add code to strip the PhotoID
packets.

Are there any plans for NAI to documnet the LDAP interface to their
certserver? It would come in handy for those of us developing OpenPGP
aplications.

- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://www.openpgp.net
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 5.0 at: http://www.openpgp.net/pgp.html
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
 
Tag-O-Matic: Win3.1? For fast relief call 800-3-IBM-OS2.

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 14:16:50 -0400

> will strip off the Attribute ID packets.  So there is still an OpenPGP

But is this on by default, or can I expect 99.5% of the PGP key packets I
get from users and keyservers to have the new packets?

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From: Jack Repenning <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 12:20:00 -0700

>get from users and keyservers to have the new packets?

Compatibilty mode for key export is on by default (in the betas I saw, at
any rate).  But it's a persistent check box: the first time a 6.0 user
sends a key to another 6.0 user saying "look at my pretty face," and
eventually figures out why the face wasn't sent, that box will get
unchecked, and that user will start sending troublesome sig-blocks to pre-6
users.  The server-mediated exchange looks rugged to me, but the
user-mediated exchange is going to create confusion.  I dunno about 99.5%;
probably some more-disruptive figure, like 50%....