Re: Lack of PGP signatures
It is not possible to clear-sign binaries with PGP. The point of clear- signing is to have signed text that is readable to people who don't have the software necessary to process the text. It would make sense to clearsign a file
that
is base64'ed or uuencoded, which wouldn't alter the contents of the file. I can't see how such an option would be harmful, except that it might lose some characters that are important to the context of the message.
Mark, Of course you can use pgp to sign binaries. How else did the pgp binary itself get signed? You can either sign it in a separate file, or in the same file. PGP sorts it out for you. What do you use it for? Same reasons you sign text. "I signed this file" means that you vouch for it in some undefined way (maybe I wrote and compiled it, or somesuch). Clay *************************************************************************** Clay Olbon II * Clay.Olbon@dynetics.com Systems Engineer * PGP262 public key on web page Dynetics, Inc. * http://www.msen.com/~olbon/olbon.html ***************************************************************** TANSTAAFL
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On 5 Jul 1996, Clay Olbon II wrote:
Mark,
Of course you can use pgp to sign binaries. How else did the pgp binary itself get signed? You can either sign it in a separate file, or in the same file. PGP sorts it out for you.
What do you use it for? Same reasons you sign text. "I signed this file" means that you vouch for it in some undefined way (maybe I wrote and compiled it, or somesuch).
I didn't say that binaries couldn't be signed. I said they couldn't be *clear*-signed. There is a difference between clearsigning and creating a signature certificate that is either concatenated with the data or written to a separate file. If somebody who doesn't have PGP gets a file that is signed by PGP, the file is completely useless to that person. - -- Mark =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= markm@voicenet.com | finger -l for PGP key 0xe3bf2169 http://www.voicenet.com/~markm/ | d61734f2800486ae6f79bfeb70f95348 "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." --George Orwell, _1984_ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBMd1G47Zc+sv5siulAQEjvQQAg57AF6FAZbQ8EeOJ2CH9UCTDB5rfNl3B e5OUIgLMHLnkix8xQchoTEXo0f4spBRjddUu5fy16nP5k9ZNiyKCAYOYZZeiR7n9 cG/reikrCbW02/kAlCJcdoNIsTFXuauf3qity+Co1x2afu0Nl/V4vwvaAzxyLHRK tYECCec7pNY= =iR57 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (2)
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Clay Olbon II -
Mark M.