PGP & GPG compatibility

[Simon Josefsson]

jamesd at echeque.com writes:

>> >  > Things would get much better if a PGP 2 version with 
>> >  > support for CAST5 would get more into use.  [ etc. ]
>
> On Sat, 9 Feb 2002, Russell Nelson wrote:
>> > I know that you're working hard, Werner, but I believe 
>> > that the recent few years have destroyed the PGP 
>> > brandname.  I think the only worthwhile way forward is to 
>> > create a cryptographic email standard de novo, which is 
>> > free of export, trademark, and patent problems.
>
> On 9 Feb 2002, at 22:36, Lucky Green wrote:
>> I believe such a standard already exists. It is called 
>> S/MIME. Best of all, this email encryption standard is 
>> supported out-of-the-box by the overwhelming majority of 
>> deployed MUA's in the world.
>
> However, to make it work, everyone needs to get officially 
> blessed keys, and manage those keys.

I believe it would be fruitful to separate the secure email message
formats (S/MIME vs PGP/MIME, or perhaps CMS vs OpenPGP) from the key
trust mechanism (PKI CA vs PGP web of trust).  In theory I cannot see
why one decision need to affect the other, they could be orthogonal
issues.  Perhaps by reading the relevant standards creatively, a
mailer sending S/MIME messages but uses a OpenPGP implementation
locally is already possible.


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