[lug] Thunderbird, Enigmail, and MIME encapsulation

[Quentin Hartman]

Please double-check this, but as I recall some software likes to encrypt
the message, attach it as a mime attachment, and then send a "normal"
message with attachment, rather than changing the content type. In fact, I
think this has become the de-facto standard way of operating. Is sylpheed
perhaps not recognizing the encrypted message because of that? Is there a
setting in Sylpheed to change that behavior?


On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 9:31 PM, Jed S. Baer <blug at jbaer.cotse.net> wrote:

> Hi Folks.
>
> Having some trouble with encrypted e-mail. But before I spend a bunch of
> time digging into it -- setting up a test environment with Thunderbird,
> reading RFCs etc., I thought I'd bounce it up here for a sanity check. I
> could be just way off right at the start.
>
> I've used encrypted e-mail in the past, no problem. I use Sylpheed and
> GnuPG. I recently started correspondence with someone who uses
> Thunderbird and Enigmail, on a Mandriva system. Problem is, the mail I
> get from her looks like:
>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
> > Charset: ISO-8859-1
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
> >
> > hQEOA8/jfDlMPiLoEAP/WDub4fJCHGYQ1SMdNu4f/ys0OJkj3HXWTGsowS7cxpq4
> [snip]
>
> Sylpheed doesn't realize this is something to decrypt.
>
> I'm expecting encrypted mail to look more like:
>
> > Content-Type: multipart/encrypted; protocol="application/pgp-encrypted";
>
> followed by the appropriate boundaries and the message block.
>
> So, I think this is bug in Thunderbird/Enigmail, and encrypted mail
> shouldn't be arriving with a text/plain content type. Or am I just all
> wet? (Yes, I know, if you encrypt outside your MUA, encode it, and
> paste it into the message, that's what will happen.)
>
> TIA,
> jed
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