[Enigmail] One recipient sees an attached .asc file, but another sees it inline

[Patrick Chkoreff]

When I send a message to my friend "Bob", who uses a Windows system, he
sees a blank email with an attached encrypted file, which he has to save
out to decrypt instead of using the clipboard decryption in his Windows
"tray". I view the Message Source and sure enough I see this:

Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="encrypted.asc"
Content-Description: OpenPGP encrypted message
Content-Disposition: inline; filename="encrypted.asc"

That's no fun for him, having to decrypt "encrypted.asc" from the
command line.


In contrast, when I send a message to MYSELF, I see everything inline:

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Language: en-US
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
...


Not a file name in sight, which is what I want!


I looked at my Per-Recipient rules, and I see that for both "Bob" and
myself I see this setting:

PGP/MIME: Yes, if selected in Message Composition


So as far as I can tell, the per-recipient settings are IDENTICAL, and
yet I get a DIFFERENT output when I send.

Can anybody think of something more I can do to force Enigmail NOT to
set up one of those "encrypted.asc" file attachment things, which it
ironically labels as "inline". Yeah, the file is encoded inline, but I
don't want a file at all.


Thanks in advance,
Patrick Chkoreff

[Patrick Chkoreff]

Post by Patrick Chkoreff
Can anybody think of something more I can do to force Enigmail NOT to
set up one of those "encrypted.asc" file attachment things,

OK I think I figured something out. I went into the Per-Recipient rules
and set PGP/MIME to "Never". I sent a message to my friend Bob and saw
this:

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Language: en-US
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
...



That looks like success to me!


--
Patrick Chkoreff

[Mark Rousell]

Post by Patrick Chkoreff

Post by Patrick Chkoreff
Can anybody think of something more I can do to force Enigmail NOT to
set up one of those "encrypted.asc" file attachment things,

OK I think I figured something out. I went into the Per-Recipient rules
and set PGP/MIME to "Never". I sent a message to my friend Bob and saw
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Language: en-US
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

What mail client is Bob using? The first message part header you
quoted[1] is correct for PGP/MIME which I would have thought any modern
mail client should be able to decode.




Footnote:-
1: If this is the message part header (which you quoted)

Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="encrypted.asc"
Content-Description: OpenPGP encrypted message
Content-Disposition: inline; filename="encrypted.asc"

then this will be in the main message header:

Content-Type: multipart/encrypted;
protocol="application/pgp-encrypted";
boundary="<longstring>"

[Patrick Chkoreff]

Post by Mark Rousell
What mail client is Bob using? The first message part header you
quoted[1] is correct for PGP/MIME which I would have thought any modern
mail client should be able to decode.

Oh, he's using Outlook or something. He uses the "PGP Tray" to decrypt
the clipboard. He's not using any built in support in the email client.
An odd duck.


--
Patrick Chkoreff

[Mark Rousell]

Post by Patrick Chkoreff

Post by Mark Rousell
What mail client is Bob using? The first message part header you
quoted[1] is correct for PGP/MIME which I would have thought any modern
mail client should be able to decode.

Oh, he's using Outlook or something. He uses the "PGP Tray" to decrypt
the clipboard. He's not using any built in support in the email client.
An odd duck.

I believe that 'PGP Tray' is part of Symantec's PGP email encryption
software. Either that or it's a very old version of the PGP software. I
vaguely seem to recall that PGP Tray was part of PGP Desktop before
Symantec bought it. But that was a very long ago.

As far as I am aware, up to date PGP from Symantec can handle PGP/MIME
but I would have thought that virtually no one outside of a corporate
environment would be using this nowadays.

[Patrick Chkoreff]

Post by Mark Rousell
I believe that 'PGP Tray' is part of Symantec's PGP email encryption
software. Either that or it's a very old version of the PGP software. I
vaguely seem to recall that PGP Tray was part of PGP Desktop before
Symantec bought it. But that was a very long ago.
As far as I am aware, up to date PGP from Symantec can handle PGP/MIME
but I would have thought that virtually no one outside of a corporate
environment would be using this nowadays.

And you would have thought correctly. Trust me, this guy is WAY outside
any corporate environment.

Thankfully Enigmail has a "Never" option for PGP/MIME, on a
per-recipient basis, so Mr. Brunschwig has done great work in a very
tricky domain.


-- Patrick Chkoreff

[Mark Rousell]

Post by Patrick Chkoreff
so Mr. Brunschwig has done great work in a very
tricky domain.

Agreed. :-)

[Patrick Chkoreff]

Post by Mark Rousell
I believe that 'PGP Tray' is part of Symantec's PGP email encryption
software. Either that or it's a very old version of the PGP software. I
vaguely seem to recall that PGP Tray was part of PGP Desktop before
Symantec bought it. But that was a very long ago.
As far as I am aware, up to date PGP from Symantec can handle PGP/MIME
but I would have thought that virtually no one outside of a corporate
environment would be using this nowadays.

I got two things wrong.

First, I missed your point that nobody outside of a corporate
environment would be using this. I misinterpreted to mean nobody
*inside* a corporate environment would be using this. (Slaps forehead)

Second, I misquoted my friend. He is not using "PGP Tray" or anything
that was ever connected with Symantec. He is using two things: Windows
Privacy Tray (which is connected with GnuPT) and a plugin for Pegasus.
Both are very old and only do very simple things, but they make using
GPG simple and reliable for him.


--
Patrick Chkoreff

[Mark Rousell]

Post by Patrick Chkoreff
Second, I misquoted my friend. He is not using "PGP Tray" or anything
that was ever connected with Symantec. He is using two things: Windows
Privacy Tray (which is connected with GnuPT) and a plugin for Pegasus.
Both are very old and only do very simple things, but they make using
GPG simple and reliable for him.

Ah, that does make sense. A lot of people find a system that works for
them and then never change it.