Subject: a basic question

From: "Pradeep, PK" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 13:30:26 +0530

Hi group, 

I am new to S/MIME and MIME concepts.. I have a few very basic question..pl.
help 

1. S/MIME message is a ascii (text) message or a binary message? 
  
2. suppose i have a .gif file which i am sending as attachment of
multipart/related MIME message. the attachment file is base64
transfer-encoded...the resulting MIME message is a binary message or a text
message. can the MIME message be srored as string.

3. I have a multipart/signed message which i have signed using my private
key...the message is a binary message or text message?

thanks in advance, 

Pradeep

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From: "Housley, Russ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 13:42:13 -0400

Pradeep:

>1. S/MIME message is a ascii (text) message or a binary message?

The protected content is MIME encoded, so it can be anything.

>message. can the MIME message be srored as string.

The result of the base64 encoding is a character string.

>key...the message is a binary message or text message?

This depends on the encoding that is employed.  If base64 is used, then (as 
before) the output is a character string.  If a binary encoding is used, 
then, as expected, a binary message is the result.

Russ