Skip to main content

S/MIME Version 2 Message Specification
draft-dusse-smime-msg-06

The information below is for an old version of the document that is already published as an RFC.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 2311.
Authors Lisa Repka , Blake C. Ramsdell , Laurence Lundblade , Paul E. Hoffman , Steve Dusse
Last updated 2013-03-02 (Latest revision 1997-11-10)
RFC stream Legacy stream
Intended RFC status Informational
Formats
Stream Legacy state (None)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
RFC Editor Note (None)
IESG IESG state Became RFC 2311 (Historic)
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)
draft-dusse-smime-msg-06
Internet Draft                                   Steve Dusse,
draft-dusse-smime-msg-06.txt                     RSA Data Security
November 08, 1997                                Paul Hoffman,
Expires in six months                            Internet Mail Consortium
                                                 Blake Ramsdell,
                                                 Worldtalk
                                                 Laurence Lundblade,
                                                 Qualcomm
                                                 Lisa Repka,
                                                 Netscape

                 S/MIME Message Specification

Status of this memo

This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working documents
of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working
groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as
Internet-Drafts.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and
may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It
is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite
them other than as "work in progress."

To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the
"1id-abstracts.txt" listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow
Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe), munnari.oz.au
(Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West
Coast).

1. Introduction

S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) provides a consistent
way to send and receive secure MIME data. Based on the popular Internet
MIME standard, S/MIME provides the following cryptographic security
services for electronic messaging applications: authentication, message
integrity and non-repudiation of origin (using digital signatures) and
privacy and data security (using encryption).

S/MIME can be used by traditional mail user agents (MUAs) to add
cryptographic security services to mail that is sent, and to interpret
cryptographic security services in mail that is received. However, S/MIME
is not restricted to mail; it can be used with any transport mechanism that
transports MIME data, such as HTTP. As such, S/MIME takes advantage of the
object-based features of MIME and allows secure messages to be exchanged in
mixed-transport systems.

Further, S/MIME can be used in automated message transfer agents that use
cryptographic security services that do not require any human intervention,
such as the signing of software-generated documents and the encryption of
FAX messages sent over the Internet.

1.1 Specification Overview

This document describes a protocol for adding cryptographic signature and
encryption services to MIME data. The MIME standard [MIME-SPEC] provides a
general structure for the content type of Internet messages and allows
extensions for new content type applications.

This draft defines how to create a MIME body part that has been
cryptographically enhanced according to PKCS #7 [PKCS-7]. This draft also
defines the application/pkcs7-mime MIME type that can be used to transport
those body parts. This draft also defines how to create certification
requests that conform to PKCS #10 [PKCS-10], and the application/pkcs10
MIME type for transporting those requests.

This draft also discusses how to use the multipart/signed MIME type defined
in [MIME-SECURE] to transport S/MIME signed messages. This draft also
defines the application/pkcs7-signature MIME type, which is also used to
transport S/MIME signed messages. This specification is compatible with
PKCS #7 in that it uses the data types defined by PKCS #7.

In order to create S/MIME messages, an agent has to follow specifications
in this draft, as well as some of the specifications listed in the
following documents:
 - "PKCS #1: RSA Encryption", [PKCS-1]
 - "PKCS #7: Cryptographic Message Syntax", [PKCS-7]
 - "PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax", [PKCS-10]

Throughout this draft, there are requirements and recommendations made for
how receiving agents handle incoming messages. There are separate
requirements and recommendations for how sending agents create outgoing
messages. In general, the best strategy is to "be liberal in what you
receive and conservative in what you send". Most of the requirements are
placed on the handling of incoming messages while the recommendations are
mostly on the creation of outgoing messages.

The separation for requirements on receiving agents and sending agents also
derives from the likelihood that there will be S/MIME systems that involve
software other than traditional Internet mail clients. S/MIME can be used
with any system that transports MIME data. An automated process that sends
an encrypted message might not be able to receive an encrypted message at
all, for example. Thus, the requirements and recommendations for the two
types of agents are listed separately when appropriate.

1.2 Terminology

Throughout this draft, the terms MUST, MUST NOT, SHOULD, and SHOULD NOT are
used in capital letters. This conforms to the definitions in [MUSTSHOULD].
[MUSTSHOULD] defines the use of these key words to help make the intent of
standards track documents as clear as possible. The same key words are used
in this document to help implementors achieve interoperability.

1.3 Definitions

For the purposes of this draft, the following definitions apply.

ASN.1: Abstract Syntax Notation One, as defined in CCITT X.208.

BER: Basic Encoding Rules for ASN.1, as defined in CCITT X.209.

Certificate: A type that binds an entity's distinguished name to a public
key with a digital signature.

DER: Distinguished Encoding Rules for ASN.1, as defined in CCITT X.509.

7-bit data: Text data with lines less than 998 characters long, where none
of the characters have the 8th bit set, and there are no NULL characters.
<CR> and <LF> occur only as part of a <CR><LF> end of line delimiter.

8-bit data: Text data with lines less than 998 characters, and where none
of the characters are NULL characters. <CR> and <LF> occur only as part of
a <CR><LF> end of line delimiter.

Binary data: Arbitrary data.

Transfer Encoding: A reversible transformation made on data so 8-bit or
binary data may be sent via a channel that only transmits 7-bit data.

1.4 Compatibility with Prior Practice of S/MIME

Appendix C contains important information about how S/MIME agents following
this specification should act in order to have the greatest
interoperability with earlier implementations of S/MIME.

1.5 Discussion of This Draft

This draft is being discussed on the "ietf-smime" mailing list.
To subscribe, send a message to:
     ietf-smime-request@imc.org
with the single word
     subscribe
in the body of the message. There is a Web site for the mailing list
at <http://www.imc.org/ietf-smime/>.

2. PKCS #7 Options

The PKCS #7 message format allows for a wide variety of options in content
and algorithm support. This section puts forth a number of support
requirements and recommendations in order to achieve a base level of
interoperability among all S/MIME implementations.

2.1 DigestAlgorithmIdentifier

Receiving agents MUST support SHA-1 [SHA1] and MD5 [MD5].

Sending agents SHOULD use SHA-1.

2.2 DigestEncryptionAlgorithmIdentifier

Receiving agents MUST support rsaEncryption, defined in [PKCS-1]. Receiving
agents MUST support verification of signatures using RSA public key sizes
from 512 bits to 1024 bits.

Sending agents MUST support rsaEncryption. Outgoing messages are signed
with a user's private key. The size of the private key is determined during
key generation.

2.3 KeyEncryptionAlgorithmIdentifier

Receiving agents MUST support rsaEncryption. Incoming encrypted messages
contain symmetric keys which are to be decrypted with a user's private key.
The size of the private key is determined during key generation.

Sending agents MUST support rsaEncryption. Sending agents MUST support
encryption of symmetric keys with RSA public keys at key sizes from 512
bits to 1024 bits.

2.4 General Syntax

The PKCS #7 defines six distinct content types: "data", "signedData",
"envelopedData", "signedAndEnvelopedData", "digestedData", and
"encryptedData". Receiving agents MUST support the "data", "signedData" and
"envelopedData" content types. Sending agents may or may not send out any
of the content types, depending on the services that the agent supports.

2.4.1 Data Content Type

Sending agents MUST use the "data" content type as the content within other
content types to indicate the message content which has had security
services applied to it.

2.4.2 SignedData Content Type

Sending agents MUST use the signedData content type to apply a digital
signature to a message or, in a degenerate case where there is no signature
information, to convey certificates.

2.4.3 EnvelopedData Content Type

This content type is used to apply privacy protection to a message. A
sender needs to have access to a public key for each intended message
recipient to use this service. This content type does not provide
authentication.

2.5 Attribute SignerInfo Type

The SignerInfo type allows the inclusion of unauthenticated and
authenticated attributes to be included along with a signature.

Receiving agents MUST be able to handle zero or one instance of each of the
signed attributes described in this section.

Sending agents SHOULD be able to generate one instance of each of the
signed attributes described in this section, and SHOULD include these
attributes in each signed message sent.

Additional attributes and values for these attributes may be defined in the
future. Receiving agents SHOULD handle attributes or values that it does
not recognize in a graceful manner.

2.5.1 Signing-Time Attribute

The signing-time attribute is used to convey the time that a message was
signed. Until there are trusted timestamping services, the time of signing
will most likely be created by a message originator and therefore is only
as trustworthy as the originator.

Sending agents MUST encode signing time through the year 2049 as UTCTime;
signing times in 2050 or later MUST be encoded as GeneralizedTime. Agents
MUST interpret the year field (YY) as follows: if YY is greater than or
equal to 50, the year is interpreted as 19YY; if YY is less than 50, the
year is interpreted as 20YY.

2.5.2 sMIMECapabilities Attribute

The sMIMECapabilities attribute includes signature algorithms (such as
"md5WithRSAEncryption"), symmetric algorithms (such as "DES-CBC"), and key
encipherment algorithms (such as "rsaEncryption"). It also includes a
non-algorithm capability which is the preference for signedData. The
sMIMECapabilities were designed to be flexible and extensible so that, in
the future, a means of identifying other capabilities and preferences such
as certificates can be added in a way that will not cause current clients
to break.

The semantics of the SMIMECapabilites attribute specify a partial list as
to what the client announcing the SMIMECapabilites can support. A client
does not have to list every capability it supports, and probably should not
list all its capabilities so that the capabilities list doesn't get too
long. In an sMIMECapabilities attribute, the OIDs are listed in order of
their preference, but SHOULD be logically separated along the lines of
their categories (signature algorithms, symmetric algorithms, key
encipherment algorithms, etc.)

The structure of the sMIMECapabilities attribute is to facilitate simple
table lookups and binary comparisons in order to determine matches. For
instance, the DER-encoding for the SMIMECapability for DES EDE3 CBC MUST be
identically encoded regardless of the implementation.

In the case of symmetric algorithms, the associated parameters for the OID
MUST specify all of the parameters necessary to differentiate between two
instances of the same algorithm. For instance, the number of rounds and
block size for RC5 must be specified in addition to the key length.

There is a list of OIDs (the registered sMIMECapabilities list) that is
centrally maintained and is separate from this draft. The list of OIDs is
maintained by the Internet Mail Consortium at
<http://www.imc.org/ietf-smime/oids.html>.

The OIDs that correspond to algorithms SHOULD use the same OID as the
actual algorithm, except in the case where the algorithm usage is ambiguous
from the OID. For instance, in an earlier draft, rsaEncryption was
ambiguous because it could refer to either a signature algorithm or a key
encipherment algorithm. In the event that an OID is ambiguous, it needs to
be arbitrated by the maintainer of the registered sMIMECapabilities list as
to which type of algorithm will use the OID, and a new OID MUST be
allocated under the sMIMECapabilities OID to satisfy the other use of the
OID.

The registered sMIMECapabilities list specifies the parameters for OIDs
that need them, most notably key lengths in the case of variable-length
symmetric ciphers. In the event that there are no differentiating
parameters for a particular OID, the parameters MUST be omitted, and MUST
NOT be encoded as NULL.

Additional values for the sMIMECapabilities attribute may be defined in the
future. Receiving agents MUST handle a sMIMECapabilities object that has
values that it does not recognize in a graceful manner.

2.6 ContentEncryptionAlgorithmIdentifier

Receiving agents MUST support decryption using the RC2 [RC2] or a
compatible algorithm at a key size of 40 bits, hereinafter called "RC2/40".
Receiving agents SHOULD support decryption using DES EDE3 CBC, hereinafter
called "tripleDES" [3DES] [DES].

Sending agents SHOULD support encryption with RC2/40 and tripleDES.

2.6.1 Deciding Which Encryption Method To Use

When a sending agent creates an encrypted message, it has to decide which
type of encryption to use. The decision process involves using information
garnered from the capabilities lists included in messages received from the
recipient, as well as out-of-band information such as private agreements,
user preferences, legal restrictions, and so on.

Section 2.5 defines a method by which a sending agent can optionally
announce, among other things, its decrypting capabilities in its order of
preference. The following method for processing and remembering the
encryption capabilities attribute in incoming signed messages SHOULD be
used.

 - If the receiving agent has not yet created a list of capabilities
   for the sender's public key, then, after verifying the signature
   on the incoming message and checking the timestamp, the receiving
   agent SHOULD create a new list containing at least the signing
   time and the symmetric capabilities.

 - If such a list already exists, the receiving agent SHOULD verify
   that the signing time in the incoming message is greater than
   the signing time stored in the list and that the signature is
   valid. If so, the receiving agent SHOULD update both the signing
   time and capabilities in the list. Values of the signing time that
   lie far in the future (that is, a greater discrepancy than any
   reasonable clock skew), or a capabilitie lists in messages whose
   signature could not be verified, MUST NOT be accepted.

The list of capabilities SHOULD be stored for future use in creating
messages.

Before sending a message, the sending agent MUST decide whether it is
willing to use weak encryption for the particular data in the message. If
the sending agent decides that weak encryption is unacceptable for this
data, then the sending agent MUST NOT use a weak algorithm such as RC2/40.
The decision to use or not use weak encryption overrides any other decision
in this section about which encryption algorithm to use.

Sections 2.6.2.1 through 2.6.2.4 describe the decisions a sending agent
SHOULD use in deciding which type of encryption should be applied to a
message. These rules are ordered, so the sending agent SHOULD make its
decision in the order given.

2.6.2.1 Rule 1: Known Capabilities

If the sending agent has received a set of capabilities from the recipient
for the message the agent is about to encrypt, then the sending agent
SHOULD use that information by selecting the first capability in the list
(that is, the capability most preferred by the intended recipient) for
which the sending agent knows how to encrypt. The sending agent SHOULD use
one of the capabilities in the list if the agent reasonably expects the
recipient to be able to decrypt the message.

2.6.2.2 Rule 2: Unknown Capabilities, Known Use of Encryption

If:
 - the sending agent has no knowledge of the encryption capabilities
   of the recipient,
 - and the sending agent has received at least one message from the
   recipient,
 - and the last encrypted message received from the recipient had a 
   trusted signature on it,
then the outgoing message SHOULD use the same encryption algorithm as was
used on the last signed and encrypted message received from the recipient.

2.6.2.3 Rule 3: Unknown Capabilities, Risk of Failed Decryption

If:
 - the sending agent has no knowledge of the encryption capabilities
   of the recipient,
 - and the sending agent is willing to risk that the recipient may
   not be able to decrypt the message,
then the sending agent SHOULD use tripleDES.

2.6.2.4 Rule 4: Unknown Capabilities, No Risk of Failed Decryption

If:
 - the sending agent has no knowledge of the encryption capabilities
   of the recipient,
 - and the sending agent is not willing to risk that the recipient
   may not be able to decrypt the message,
then the sending agent MUST use RC2/40.

2.6.3 Choosing Weak Encryption

Like all algorithms that use 40 bit keys, RC2/40 is considered by many to
be weak encryption. A sending agent that is controlled by a human SHOULD
allow a human sender to determine the risks of sending data using RC2/40 or
a similarly weak encryption algorithm before sending the data, and possibly
allow the human to use a stronger encryption method such as tripleDES.

2.6.4 Multiple Recipients

If a sending agent is composing an encrypted message to a group of
recipients where the encryption capabilities of some of the recipients do
not overlap, the sending agent is forced to send more than one message. It
should be noted that if the sending agent chooses to send a message
encrypted with a strong algorithm, and then send the same message encrypted
with a weak algorithm, someone watching the communications channel can
decipher the contents of the strongly-encrypted message simply by
decrypting the weakly-encrypted message.

3. Creating S/MIME Messages

This section describes the S/MIME message formats and how they are created.
S/MIME messages are a combination of MIME bodies and PKCS objects. Several
MIME types as well as several PKCS objects are used. The data to be secured
is always a canonical MIME entity. The MIME entity and other data, such as
certificates and algorithm identifiers, are given to PKCS processing
facilities which produces a PKCS object. The PKCS object is then finally
wrapped in MIME.

S/MIME provides one format for enveloped-only data, several formats for
signed-only data, and several formats for signed and enveloped data.
Several formats are required to accommodate several environments, in
particular for signed messages. The criteria for choosing among these
formats are also described.

The reader of this section is expected to understand MIME as described in
[MIME-SPEC] and [MIME-SECURE].

3.1 Preparing the MIME Entity for Signing or Enveloping

S/MIME is used to secure MIME entities. A MIME entity may be a sub-part,
sub-parts of a message, or the whole message with all its sub-parts. A MIME
entity that is the whole message includes only the MIME headers and MIME
body, and does not include the RFC-822 headers. Note that S/MIME can also
be used to secure MIME entities used in applications other than Internet
mail.

The MIME entity that is secured and described in this section can be
thought of as the "inside" MIME entity. That is, it is the "innermost"
object in what is possibly a larger MIME message. Processing "outside" MIME
entities into PKCS #7 objects is described in Section 3.2, 3.4 and
elsewhere.

The procedure for preparing a MIME entity is given in [MIME-SPEC]. The same
procedure is used here with some additional restrictions when signing.
Description of the procedures from [MIME-SPEC] are repeated here, but the
reader should refer to that document for the exact procedure. This section
also describes additional requirements.

A single procedure is used for creating MIME entities that are to be
signed, enveloped, or both signed and enveloped. Some additional steps are
recommended to defend against known corruptions that can occur during mail
transport that are of particular importance for clear-signing using the
multipart/signed format. It is recommended that these additional steps be
performed on enveloped messages, or signed and enveloped messages in order
that the message can be forwarded to any environment without modification.

These steps are descriptive rather than prescriptive. The implementor is
free to use any procedure as long as the result is the same.

  Step 1. The MIME entity is prepared according to the local
          conventions

  Step 2. The leaf parts of the MIME entity are converted to canonical
          form

  Step 3. Appropriate transfer encoding is applied to the leaves of
          the MIME entity

When an S/MIME message is received, the security services on the message
are removed, and the result is the MIME entity. That MIME entity is
typically passed to a MIME-capable user agent where, it is further decoded
and presented to the user or receiving application.

3.1.1 Canonicalization

Each MIME entity MUST be converted to a canonical form that is uniquely and
unambiguously representable in the environment where the signature is
created and the environment where the signature will be verified. MIME
entities MUST be canonicalized for enveloping as well as signing.

The exact details of canonicalization depend on the actual MIME type and
subtype of an entity, and are not described here. Instead, the standard for
the particular MIME type should be consulted. For example, canonicalization
of type text/plain is different from canonicalization of audio/basic. Other
than text types, most types have only one representation regardless of
computing platform or environment which can be considered their canonical
representation. In general, canonicalization will be performed by the
sending agent rather than the S/MIME implementation.

The most common and important canonicalization is for text, which is often
represented differently in different environments. MIME entities of major
type "text" must have both their line endings and character set
canonicalized. The line ending must be the pair of characters <CR><LF>, and
the charset should be a registered charset [CHARSETS]. The details of the
canonicalization are specified in [MIME-SPEC]. The chosen charset SHOULD be
named in the charset parameter so that the receiving agent can
unambiguously determine the charset used.

Note that some charsets such as ISO-2022 have multiple representations for
the same characters. When preparing such text for signing, the canonical
representation specified for the charset MUST be used.

3.1.2 Transfer Encoding

When generating any of the secured MIME entities below, except the signing
using the multipart/signed format, no transfer encoding at all is required.
S/MIME implementations MUST be able to deal with binary MIME objects. If no
Content-Transfer-Encoding header is present, the transfer encoding should
be considered 7BIT.

S/MIME implementations SHOULD however use transfer encoding described in
section 3.1.3 for all MIME entities they secure. The reason for securing
only 7-bit MIME entities, even for enveloped data that are not exposed to
the transport, is that it allows the MIME entity to be handled in any
environment without changing it. For example, a trusted gateway might
remove the envelope, but not the signature, of a message, and then forward
the signed message on to the end recipient so that they can verify the
signatures directly. If the transport internal to the site is not 8-bit
clean, such as on a wide-area network with a single mail gateway, verifying
the signature will not be possible unless the original MIME entity was only
7-bit data.

3.1.3 Transfer Encoding for Signing Using multipart/signed

If a multipart/signed entity is EVER to be transmitted over the standard
Internet SMTP infrastructure or other transport that is constrained to
7-bit text, it MUST have transfer encoding applied so that it is
represented as 7-bit text. MIME entities that are 7-bit data already need
no transfer encoding. Entities such as 8-bit text and binary data can be
encoded with quoted-printable or base-64 transfer encoding.

The primary reason for the 7-bit requirement is that the Internet mail
transport infrastructure cannot guarantee transport of 8-bit or binary
data. Even though many segments of the transport infrastructure now handle
8-bit and even binary data, it is sometimes not possible to know whether
the transport path is 8-bit clear. If a mail message with 8-bit data were
to encounter a message transfer agent that can not transmit 8-bit or binary
data, the agent has three options, none of which are acceptable for a
clear-signed message:
 - The agent could change the transfer encoding; this would
   invalidate the signature.
 - The agent could transmit the data anyway, which would most likely
   result in the 8th bit being corrupted; this too would invalidate
   the signature.
 - The agent could return the message to the sender.

[MIME-SECURE] prohibits an agent from changing the transfer encoding of the
first part of a multipart/signed message. If a compliant agent that can not
transmit 8-bit or binary data encounters a multipart/signed message with
8-bit or binary data in the first part, it would have to return the message
to the sender as undeliverable.

3.1.4 Sample Canonical MIME Entity

This example shows a multipart/mixed message with full transfer encoding.
This message contains a text part and an attachment. The sample message
text includes characters that are not US-ASCII and thus must be transfer
encoded. Though not shown here, the end of each line is <CR><LF>. The line
ending of the MIME headers, the text, and transfer encoded parts, all must
be <CR><LF>.

Note that this example is not of an S/MIME message.

    Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=bar

    --bar
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

    =A1Hola Michael!

    How do you like the new S/MIME specification?

    I agree. It's generally a good idea to encode lines that begin with
    From=20because some mail transport agents will insert a greater-
    than (>) sign, thus invalidating the signature.

    Also, in some cases it might be desirable to encode any   =20
    trailing whitespace that occurs on lines in order to ensure  =20
    that the message signature is not invalidated when passing =20
    a gateway that modifies such whitespace (like BITNET). =20

    --bar
    Content-Type: image/jpeg
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
        
    iQCVAwUBMJrRF2N9oWBghPDJAQE9UQQAtl7LuRVndBjrk4EqYBIb3h5QXIX/LC//
    jJV5bNvkZIGPIcEmI5iFd9boEgvpirHtIREEqLQRkYNoBActFBZmh9GC3C041WGq
    uMbrbxc+nIs1TIKlA08rVi9ig/2Yh7LFrK5Ein57U/W72vgSxLhe/zhdfolT9Brn
    HOxEa44b+EI=
        
    --bar--

3.2 The application/pkcs7-mime Type

The application/pkcs7-mime type is used to carry PKCS #7 objects of several
types including envelopedData and signedData. The details of constructing
these entities is described in subsequent sections. This section describes
the general characteristics of the application/pkcs7-mime type.

This MIME type always carries a single PKCS #7 object. The PKCS #7 object
must always be BER encoding of the ASN.1 syntax describing the object. The
contentInfo field of the carried PKCS #7 object always contains a MIME
entity that is prepared as described in section 3.1. The contentInfo field
must never be empty.

Since PKCS #7 objects are binary data, in most cases base-64 transfer
encoding is appropriate, in particular when used with SMTP transport. The
transfer encoding used depends on the transport through which the object is
to be sent, and is not a characteristic of the MIME type.

Note that this discussion refers to the transfer encoding of the PKCS #7
object or "outside" MIME entity. It is completely distinct from, and
unrelated to, the transfer encoding of the MIME entity secured by the PKCS
#7 object, the "inside" object, which is described in section 3.1.

Because there are several types of application/pkcs7-mime objects, a
sending agent SHOULD do as much as possible to help a receiving agent know
about the contents of the object without forcing the receiving agent to
decode the ASN.1 for the object. The MIME headers of all
application/pkcs7-mime objects SHOULD include the optional "smime-type"
parameter, as described in the following sections.

3.2.1 The name and filename Parameters

For the application/pkcs7-mime, sending agents SHOULD emit the optional
"name" parameter to the Content-Type field for compatibility with older
systems. Sending agents SHOULD also emit the optional Content-Disposition
field [CONTDISP] with the "filename" parameter. If a sending agent emits
the above parameters, the value of the parameters SHOULD be a file name
with the appropriate extension:

MIME Type                      File Extension

application/pkcs7-mime              .p7m
(signedData, envelopedData)

application/pkcs7-mime              .p7c
(degenerate signedData
"certs-only" message)

application/pkcs7-signature         .p7s

application/pkcs10                  .p10

In addition, the file name SHOULD be limited to eight characters followed
by a three letter extension. The eight character filename base can be any
distinct name; the use of the filename base "smime" SHOULD be used to
indicate that the MIME entity is associated with S/MIME.

Including a file name serves two purposes. It facilitates easier use of
S/MIME objects as files on disk. It also can convey type information across
gateways. When a MIME entity of type application/pkcs7-mime (for example)
arrives at a gateway that has no special knowledge of S/MIME, it will
default the entity's MIME type to application/octet-stream and treat it as
a generic attachment, thus losing the type information. However, the
suggested filename for an attachment is often carried across a gateway.
This often allows the receiving systems to determine the appropriate
application to hand the attachment off to, in this case a stand-alone
S/MIME processing application. Note that this mechanism is provided as a
convenience for implementations in certain environments. A proper S/MIME
implementation MUST use the MIME types and MUST NOT rely on the file
extensions.

3.3 Creating an Enveloped-only Message

This section describes the format for enveloping a MIME entity without
signing it.

  Step 1. The MIME entity to be enveloped is prepared according to
          section 3.1.

  Step 2. The MIME entity and other required data is processed into a
          PKCS #7 object of type envelopedData.

  Step 3. The PKCS #7 object is inserted into an application/pkcs7-mime
          MIME entity.

The smime-type parameter for enveloped-only messages is "enveloped-data".
The file extension for this type of message is ".p7m".

A sample message would be:

    Content-Type: application/pkcs7-mime; smime-type=enveloped-data;
         name=smime.p7m
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
    Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=smime.p7m

    rfvbnj756tbBghyHhHUujhJhjH77n8HHGT9HG4VQpfyF467GhIGfHfYT6
    7n8HHGghyHhHUujhJh4VQpfyF467GhIGfHfYGTrfvbnjT6jH7756tbB9H
    f8HHGTrfvhJhjH776tbB9HG4VQbnj7567GhIGfHfYT6ghyHhHUujpfyF4
    0GhIGfHfQbnj756YT64V

3.4 Creating a Signed-only Message

There are two formats for signed messages defined for S/MIME:
application/pkcs7-mime and SignedData, and multipart/signed. In general,
the multipart/signed form is preferred for sending, and receiving agents
SHOULD be able to handle both.

3.4.1 Choosing a Format for Signed-only Messages

There are no hard-and-fast rules when a particular signed-only format
should be chosen because it depends on the capabilities of all the
receivers and the relative importance of receivers with S/MIME facilities
being able to verify the signature versus the importance of receivers
without S/MIME software being able to view the message.

Messages signed using the multipart/signed format can always be viewed by
the receiver whether they have S/MIME software or not. They can also be
viewed whether they are using a MIME-native user agent or they have
messages translated by a gateway. In this context, "be viewed" means the
ability to process the message essentially as if it were not a signed
message, including any other MIME structure the message might have.

Messages signed using the signedData format cannot be viewed by a recipient
unless they have S/MIME facilities. However, if they have S/MIME
facilities, these messages can always be verified if they were not changed
in transit.

3.4.2 Signing Using application/pkcs7-mime and SignedData

This signing format uses the application/pkcs7-mime MIME type. The steps to
create this format are:

  Step 1. The MIME entity is prepared according to section 3.1

  Step 2. The MIME entity and other required data is processed into a
          PKCS #7 object of type signedData

  Step 3. The PKCS #7 object is inserted into an 
          application/pkcs7-mime MIME entity

The smime-type parameter for messages using application/pkcs7-mime and
SignedData is "signed-data". The file extension for this type of message is
".p7m".

A sample message would be:

    Content-Type: application/pkcs7-mime; smime-type=signed-data;
         name=smime.p7m
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
    Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=smime.p7m

    567GhIGfHfYT6ghyHhHUujpfyF4f8HHGTrfvhJhjH776tbB9HG4VQbnj7
    77n8HHGT9HG4VQpfyF467GhIGfHfYT6rfvbnj756tbBghyHhHUujhJhjH
    HUujhJh4VQpfyF467GhIGfHfYGTrfvbnjT6jH7756tbB9H7n8HHGghyHh
    6YT64V0GhIGfHfQbnj75

3.4.3 Signing Using the multipart/signed Format

This format is a clear-signing format. Recipients without any S/MIME or
PKCS processing facilities are able to view the message. It makes use of
the multipart/signed MIME type described in [MIME-SECURE]. The
multipart/signed MIME type has two parts. The first part contains the MIME
entity that is to be signed; the second part contains the signature, which
is a PKCS #7 detached signature.

3.4.3.1 The application/pkcs7-signature MIME Type

This MIME type always contains a single PKCS #7 object of type signedData.
The contentInfo field of the PKCS #7 object must be empty. The signerInfos
field contains the signatures for the MIME entity. The details of the
registered type are given in Appendix E.

The file extension for signed-only messages using
application/pkcs7-signature  is ".p7s".

3.4.3.2 Creating a multipart/signed Message

  Step 1. The MIME entity to be signed is prepared according to
          section 3.1, taking special care for clear-signing.

  Step 2. The MIME entity is presented to PKCS #7 processing in order
          to obtain an object of type signedData with an empty
          contentInfo field.

  Step 3. The MIME entity is inserted into the first part of a
          multipart/signed message with no processing other than
          that described in section 3.1.

  Step 4. Transfer encoding is applied to the detached signature and
          it is inserted into a MIME entity of type
          application/pkcs7-signature

  Step 5. The MIME entity of the application/pkcs7-signature is
          inserted into the second part of the multipart/signed entity

The multipart/signed Content type has two required parameters: the protocol
parameter and the micalg parameter.

The protocol parameter MUST be "application/pkcs7-signature". Note that
quotation marks are required around the protocol parameter because MIME
requires that the "/" character in the parameter value MUST be quoted.

The micalg parameter allows for one-pass processing when the signature is
being verified. The value of the micalg parameter is dependent on the
message digest algorithm used in the calculation of the Message Integrity
Check. The value of the micalg parameter SHOULD be one of the following:

Algorithm used     Value
--------------     ---------
MD5                md5
SHA-1              sha1
any other          unknown

(Historical note: some early implementations of S/MIME emitted and expected
"rsa-md5" and "rsa-sha1" for the micalg parameter.) Receiving agents SHOULD
be able to recover gracefully from a micalg parameter value that they do
not recognize.

3.4.3.3 Sample multipart/signed Message

    Content-Type: multipart/signed;
       protocol="application/pkcs7-signature";
       micalg=sha1; boundary=boundary42

    --boundary42
    Content-Type: text/plain

    This is a clear-signed message.

    --boundary42
    Content-Type: application/pkcs7-signature; name=smime.p7s
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
    Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=smime.p7s

    ghyHhHUujhJhjH77n8HHGTrfvbnj756tbB9HG4VQpfyF467GhIGfHfYT6
    4VQpfyF467GhIGfHfYT6jH77n8HHGghyHhHUujhJh756tbB9HGTrfvbnj
    n8HHGTrfvhJhjH776tbB9HG4VQbnj7567GhIGfHfYT6ghyHhHUujpfyF4
    7GhIGfHfYT64VQbnj756
        
    --boundary42--

3.5 Signing and Encrypting

To achieve signing and enveloping, any of the signed-only and
encrypted-only formats may be nested. This is allowed because the above
formats are all MIME entities, and because they all secure MIME entities.

An S/MIME implementation MUST be able to receive and process arbitrarily
nested S/MIME within reasonable resource limits of the recipient computer.

It is possible to either sign a message first, or to envelope the message
first. It is up to the implementor and the user to choose. When signing
first, the signatories are then securely obscured by the enveloping. When
enveloping first the signatories are exposed, but it is possible to verify
signatures without removing the enveloping. This may be useful in an
environment were automatic signature verification is desired, as no private
key material is required to verify a signature.

3.6 Creating a Certificates-only Message

The certificates only message or MIME entity is used to transport
certificates, such as in response to a registration request. This format
can also be used to convey CRLs.

  Step 1. The certificates are made available to the PKCS #7 generating
          process which creates a PKCS #7 object of type signedData.
          The contentInfo and signerInfos fields must be empty.

  Step 2. The PKCS #7 signedData object is enclosed in an
          application/pkcs7-mime MIME entity

The smime-type parameter for a certs-only message is "certs-only". The file
extension for this type of message is ".p7c".

3.7 Creating a Registration Request

A typical application which allows a user to generate cryptographic
information has to submit that information to a certification authority,
who transforms it into a certificate. PKCS #10 describes a syntax for
certification requests. The application/pkcs10 body type MUST be used to
transfer a PKCS #10 certification request.

The details of certification requests and the process of obtaining a
certificate are beyond the scope of this draft. Instead, only the format of
data used in application/pkcs10 is defined.

3.7.1 Format of the application/pkcs10 Body

PKCS #10 defines the ASN.1 type CertificationRequest for use in submitting
a certification request. Therefore, when the MIME content type
application/pkcs10 is used, the body MUST be a CertificationRequest,
encoded using the Basic Encoding Rules (BER).

Although BER is specified, instead of the more restrictive DER, a typical
application will use DER since the CertificationRequest's
CertificationRequestInfo has to be DER-encoded in order to be signed. A
robust application SHOULD output DER, but allow BER or DER on input.

Data produced by BER or DER is 8-bit, but many transports are limited to
7-bit data. Therefore, a suitable 7-bit Content-Transfer-Encoding SHOULD be
applied. The base64 Content-Transfer-Encoding SHOULD be used with
application/pkcs10, although any 7-bit transfer encoding may work.

3.7.2 Sending and Receiving an application/pkcs10 Body Part

For sending a certificate-signing request, the application/pkcs10 message
format MUST be used to convey a PKCS #10 certificate-signing request. Note
that for sending certificates and CRLs messages without any signed content,
the application/pkcs7-mime message format MUST be used to convey a
degenerate PKCS #7 signedData "certs-only" message.

To send an application/pkcs10 body, the application generates the
cryptographic information for the user. The details of the cryptographic
information are beyond the scope of this draft.

  Step 1. The cryptographic information is placed within a PKCS #10
          CertificationRequest.

  Step 2. The CertificationRequest is encoded according to BER or DER
          (typically, DER).

  Step 3. As a typical step, the DER-encoded CertificationRequest is
          also base64 encoded so that it is 7-bit data suitable for
          transfer in SMTP. This then becomes the body of an
          application/pkcs10 body part.

The result might look like this:

    Content-Type: application/pkcs10; name=smime.p10
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
    Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=smime.p10

    rfvbnj756tbBghyHhHUujhJhjH77n8HHGT9HG4VQpfyF467GhIGfHfYT6
    7n8HHGghyHhHUujhJh4VQpfyF467GhIGfHfYGTrfvbnjT6jH7756tbB9H
    f8HHGTrfvhJhjH776tbB9HG4VQbnj7567GhIGfHfYT6ghyHhHUujpfyF4
    0GhIGfHfQbnj756YT64V

A typical application only needs to send a certification request. It is a
certification authority that has to receive and process the request. The
steps for recovering the CertificationRequest from the message are
straightforward but are not presented here. The procedures for processing
the certification request are beyond the scope of this document.

3.8 Identifying an S/MIME Message

Because S/MIME takes into account interoperation in non-MIME environments,
several different mechanisms are employed to carry the type information,
and it becomes a bit difficult to identify S/MIME messages. The following
table lists criteria for determining whether or not a message is an S/MIME
message. A message is considered an S/MIME message if it matches any below.

The file suffix in the table below comes from the "name" parameter in the
content-type header, or the "filename" parameter on the content-disposition
header. These parameters that give the file suffix are not listed below as
part of the parameter section.

MIME type:   application/pkcs7-mime
parameters:  any
file suffix: any
      
MIME type:   application/pkcs10
parameters:  any
file suffix: any
      
MIME type:   multipart/signed
parameters:  protocol="application/pkcs7-signature"
file suffix: any
      
MIME type:   application/octet-stream
parameters:  any
file suffix: p7m, p7s, aps, p7c, p10

4. Certificate Processing

A receiving agent MUST provide some certificate retrieval mechanism in
order to gain access to certificates for recipients of digital envelopes.
This draft does not cover how S/MIME agents handle certificates, only what
they do after a certificate has been validated or rejected. S/MIME
certification issues are covered in a different document.

At a minimum, for initial S/MIME deployment, a user agent could
automatically generate a message to an intended recipient requesting that
recipient's certificate in a signed return message. Receiving and sending
agents SHOULD also provide a mechanism to allow a user to "store and
protect" certificates for correspondents in such a way so as to guarantee
their later retrieval.

4.1 Key Pair Generation

An S/MIME agent or some related administrative utility or function MUST be
capable of generating RSA key pairs on behalf of the user. Each key pair
MUST be generated from a good source of non-deterministic random input and
protected in a secure fashion.

A user agent SHOULD generate RSA key pairs at a minimum key size of 768
bits and a maximum key size of 1024 bits. A user agent MUST NOT generate
RSA key pairs less than 512 bits long. Some agents created in the United
States have chosen to create 512 bit keys in order to get more advantageous
export licenses. However, 512 bit keys are considered by many to be
cryptographically insecure.

Implementors should be aware that multiple (active) key pairs may be
associated with a single individual. For example, one key pair may be used
to support confidentiality, while a different key pair may be used for
authentication.

5. Security Considerations

This entire draft discusses security. Security issues not covered in other
parts of the draft include:

40-bit encryption is considered weak by most cryptographers. Using weak
cryptography in S/MIME offers little actual security over sending
plaintext. However, other features of S/MIME, such as the specification of
tripleDES and the ability to announce stronger cryptographic capabilities
to parties with whom you communicate, allow senders to create messages that
use strong encryption. Using weak cryptography is never recommended unless
the only alternative is no cryptography. When feasible, sending and
receiving agents should inform senders and recipients the relative
cryptographic strength of messages.

It is impossible for most software or people to estimate the value of a
message. Further, it is impossible for most software or people to estimate
the actual cost of decrypting a message that is encrypted with a key of a
particular size. Further, it is quite difficult to determine the cost of a
failed decryption if a recipient cannot decode a message. Thus, choosing
between different key sizes (or choosing whether to just use plaintext) is
also impossible. However, decisions based on these criteria are made all
the time, and therefore this draft gives a framework for using those
estimates in choosing algorithms.

If a sending agent is sending the same message using different strengths of
cryptography, an attacker watching the communications channel can determine
the contents of the strongly-encrypted message by decrypting the
weakly-encrypted version. In other words, a sender should not send a copy
of a message using weaker cryptography than they would use for the original
of the message.

A. Object Identifiers and Syntax

The syntax for SMIMECapability is:

SMIMECapability ::= SEQUENCE {
    capabilityID OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
    parameters OPTIONAL ANY DEFINED BY capabilityID }

sMIMECapabilities ::= SEQUENCE OF SMIMECapability

A.1 Content Encryption Algorithms

RC2-CBC OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
     {iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) encryptionAlgorithm(3) 2}

For the effective-key-bits (key size) greater than 32 and less than
256, the RC2-CBC algorithm parameters are encoded as:

RC2-CBC parameter ::=  SEQUENCE {
     rc2ParameterVersion  INTEGER,
     iv                   OCTET STRING (8)}

For the effective-key-bits of 40, 64, and 128, the
rc2ParameterVersion values are 160, 120, 58 respectively.

DES-EDE3-CBC OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
     {iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) encryptionAlgorithm(3) 7}

For DES-CBC and DES-EDE3-CBC, the parameter should be encoded as:

CBCParameter :: IV

where IV ::= OCTET STRING -- 8 octets.

A.2 Digest Algorithms

md5 OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
     {iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) digestAlgorithm(2) 5}

sha-1 OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
     {iso(1) identified-organization(3) oiw(14) secsig(3) algorithm(2) 26}

A.3 Asymmetric Encryption Algorithms

rsaEncryption OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
     {iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1) pkcs-1(1) 1}

rsa OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
     {joint-iso-ccitt(2) ds(5) algorithm(8) encryptionAlgorithm(1) 1}

A.4 Signature Algorithms

md2WithRSAEncryption OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
     {iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1) pkcs-1(1) 2}

md5WithRSAEncryption OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
     {iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1) pkcs-1(1) 4}

sha-1WithRSAEncryption OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
     {iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1) pkcs-1(1) 5}

A.5 Signed Attributes

signingTime OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
     {iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1) pkcs-9(9) 5}

sMIMECapabilities OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
    {iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1) pkcs-9(9) 15}

B. References

[3DES] W. Tuchman, "Hellman Presents No Shortcut Solutions To DES," IEEE
Spectrum, v. 16, n. 7, July 1979, pp40-41.

[CHARSETS] Character sets assigned by IANA. See
<ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/character-sets>.

[CONTDISP] "Communicating Presentation Information in Internet Messages:
The Content-Disposition Header Field", RFC 2183

[DES] ANSI X3.106, "American National Standard for Information Systems-Data
Link Encryption," American National Standards Institute, 1983.

[MD5] "The MD5 Message Digest Algorithm", RFC 1321

[MIME-SPEC] The primary definition of MIME. "MIME Part 1: Format of
Internet Message Bodies", RFC 2045; "MIME Part 2: Media Types", RFC 2046;
"MIME Part 3: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text", RFC 2047;
"MIME Part 4: Registration Procedures", RFC 2048; "MIME Part 5: Conformance
Criteria and Examples", RFC 2049

[MIME-SECURE] "Security Multiparts for MIME: Multipart/Signed and
Multipart/Encrypted", RFC 1847

[MUSTSHOULD] "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels",
RFC 2119

[PKCS-1] "PKCS #1: RSA Encryption", Internet Draft
draft-hoffman-pkcs-rsa-encrypt

[PKCS-7] "PKCS #7: Cryptographic Message Syntax", Internet Draft
draft-hoffman-pkcs-crypt-msg

[PKCS-10] "PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax", Internet Draft
draft-hoffman-pkcs-certif-req

[RC2] "Description of the RC2 Encryption Algorithm", Internet Draft
draft-rivest-rc2desc

[SHA1] NIST FIPS PUB 180-1, "Secure Hash Standard," National Institute of
Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce, DRAFT, 31 May 1994.

C. Compatibility with Prior Practice in S/MIME

S/MIME was originally developed by RSA Data Security, Inc. Many developers
implemented S/MIME agents before this document was published. All S/MIME
receiving agents SHOULD make every attempt to interoperate with these
earlier implementations of S/MIME.

C.1 Early MIME Types

Some early implementations of S/MIME agents used the following MIME types:

application/x-pkcs7-mime
application/x-pkcs7-signature
application/x-pkcs10

In each case, the "x-" subtypes correspond to the subtypes described in
this document without the "x-".

C.2 Profiles

Early S/MIME documentation had two profiles for encryption: "restricted"
and "unrestricted". The difference between these profiles historically came
about due to US Government export regulations, as described at the end of
this section. It is expected that in the future, there will be few agents
that only use the restricted profile.

Briefly, the restricted profile required the ability to encrypt and decrypt
using RSA's trade-secret RC2 algorithm in CBC mode with 40-bit keys. The
unrestricted profile required the ability to encrypt and decrypt using
RSA's trade-secret RC2 algorithm in CBC mode with 40-bit keys, and to
encrypt and decrypt using tripleDES. The restricted profile also had
non-mandatory suggestions for other algorithms, but these were not widely
implemented.

It is important to note that many current implementations of S/MIME use the
restricted profile.

C.2.1 Historical Reasons for the Existence of Two Encryption Profiles

Due to US Government export regulations, an S/MIME agent which supports a
strong content encryption algorithm such as DES would not be freely
exportable outside of North America. US software manufacturers have been
compelled to incorporate an exportable or "restricted" content encryption
algorithm in order to create a widely exportable version of their product.
S/MIME agents created in the US and intended for US domestic use (or use
under special State Department export licenses) can utilize stronger,
"unrestricted" content encryption. However, in order to achieve
interoperability, such agents need to support whatever exportable algorithm
is incorporated in restricted S/MIME agents.

The RC2 symmetric encryption algorithm has been approved by the US
Government for "expedited" export licensing at certain key sizes.
Consequently, support for the RC2 algorithm in CBC mode is required for
baseline interoperability in all S/MIME implementations. Support for other
strong symmetric encryption algorithms such as RC5 CBC, DES CBC and DES
EDE3-CBC for content encryption is strongly encouraged where possible.

D. Revision History

The following changes were made between the -05 and -06 revisions of this
draft:

Removed discussion of "application/mime" wrapping because no one has
implemented it and because the specification for application/mime is in
flux. This entailed removing section 3.4.3.4, a bit of the table near the
end of section 3.8, and text throughout appendix F.

Changed the case of SMIMECapabilities to sMIMECapabilities everywhere.

Changed the references for ASN.1, BER, and DER back to their 1988
documents.

Fixed error in the MIME examples in 3.1.4 (left off the C-T-E).

Removed antique text from first paragraph 3.5.

Fixed section numbering in Appendix A.

In A.1, changed "other than 32" to "greater than 32".

Removed "smime-type" from E.2 and E.3, where they appeared by mistake.

E. Request for New MIME Subtypes

E.1 application/pkcs7-mime

To: ietf-types@iana.org
Subject: Registration of MIME media type application/pkcs7-mime

MIME media type name: application

MIME subtype name: pkcs7-mime

Required parameters: none

Optional parameters: name, filename, smime-type

Encoding considerations: Will be binary data, therefore should use
base64 encoding

Security considerations: Described in [PKCS-7]

Interoperability considerations: Designed to carry data formatted
with PKCS-7, as described in [PKCS-7]

Published specification: draft-dusse-smime-msg-xx

Applications which use this media type: Secure Internet mail and
other secure data transports.

Additional information:
File extension(s): .p7m and .p7c
Macintosh File Type Code(s):

Person & email address to contact for further information:
Steve Dusse, spock@rsa.com

Intended usage: COMMON

E.2 application/pkcs7-signature

To: ietf-types@iana.org
Subject: Registration of MIME media type application/pkcs7-signature

MIME media type name: application

MIME subtype name: pkcs7-signature

Required parameters: none

Optional parameters: name, filename

Encoding considerations: Will be binary data, therefore should use
base64 encoding

Security considerations: Described in [PKCS-7]

Interoperability considerations: Designed to carry digital
signatures with PKCS-7, as described in [PKCS-7]

Published specification: draft-dusse-smime-msg-xx

Applications which use this media type: Secure Internet mail and
other secure data transports.

Additional information:
File extension(s): .p7s
Macintosh File Type Code(s):

Person & email address to contact for further information:
Steve Dusse, spock@rsa.com

Intended usage: COMMON

E.3 application/pkcs10

To: ietf-types@iana.org
Subject: Registration of MIME media type application/pkcs10

MIME media type name: application

MIME subtype name: pkcs10

Required parameters: none

Optional parameters: name, filename

Encoding considerations: Will be binary data, therefore should use
base64 encoding

Security considerations: Described in [PKCS-10]

Interoperability considerations: Designed to carry digital
certificates formatted with PKCS-10, as described in [PKCS-10]

Published specification: draft-dusse-smime-msg-xx

Applications which use this media type: Secure Internet mail and
other transports where certificates are required.

Additional information:
File extension(s): .p10
Macintosh File Type Code(s):

Person & email address to contact for further information:
Steve Dusse, spock@rsa.com

Intended usage: COMMON

F. Encapsulating Signed Messages for Internet Transport

The rationale behind the multiple formats for signing has to do with the
MIME subtype defaulting rules of the application and multipart top-level
types, and the behavior of currently deployed gateways and mail user
agents.

Ideally, the multipart/signed format would be the only format used because
it provides a truly backwards compatible way to sign MIME entities. In a
pure MIME environment with very capable user agents, this would be
possible. The world, however, is more complex than this.

One problem with the multipart/signed format occurs with gateways to
non-MIME environments. In these environments, the gateway will generally
not be S/MIME aware, will not recognize the multipart/signed type, and will
default its treatment to multipart/mixed as is prescribed by the MIME
standard. The real problem occurs when the gateway also applies conversions
to the MIME structure of the original message that is being signed and is
contained in the first part of the multipart/signed structure, such as the
gateway converting text and attachments to the local format. Because the
signature is over the MIME structure of the original message, but the
original message is now decomposed and transformed, the signature cannot be
verified. Because MIME encoding of a particular set of body parts can be
done in many different ways, there is no way to reconstruct the original
MIME entity over which the signature was computed.

A similar problem occurs when an attempt is made to combine an existing
user agent with a stand-alone S/MIME facility. Typical user agents do not
have the ability to make a multipart sub-entity available to a stand-alone
application in the same way they make leaf MIME entities available to
"viewer" applications. This user agent behavior is not required by the MIME
standard and thus not widely implemented. The result is that it is
impossible for most user agents to hand off the entire multipart/signed
entity to a stand-alone application.

F.1 Solutions to the Problem

To work around these two problems, the application/pkcs7-mime type can be
used. When going through a gateway, it will be defaulted to the MIME type
of application/octet-stream and treated as a single opaque entity. That is,
the message will be treated as an attachment of unknown type, converted
into the local representation for an attachment and thus can be made
available to an S/MIME facility completely intact. A similar result is
achieved when a user agent similarly treats the application/pkcs7-mime MIME
entity as a simple leaf node of the MIME structure and makes it available
to viewer applications.

Another way to work around these problems is to encapsulate the
multipart/signed MIME entity in a MIME entity that will not be damaged by
the gateway. At the time that this draft is being written, there is a
proposal for a MIME entity "application/mime" for this purpose. However, no
implementations of S/MIME use this type of wrapping.

F.2 Encapsulation in an Non-MIME Environment

While this document primarily addresses the Internet, it is useful to
compose and receive S/MIME secured messages in non-MIME environments. This
is particularly the case when it is desired that security be implemented
end-to-end. Other discussion here addresses the receipt of S/MIME messages
in non-MIME environments. Here the composition of multipart/signed entities
is addressed.

When a message is to be sent in such an environment, the multipart/signed
entity is created as described above. That entity is then treated as an
opaque stream of bits and added to the message as an attachment. It must
have a file name that ends with ".aps", as this is the sole mechanism for
recognizing it as an S/MIME message by the receiving agent.

When this message arrives in a MIME environment, it is likely to have a
MIME type of application/octet-stream, with MIME parameters giving the
filename for the attachment. If the intervening gateway has carried the
file type, it will end in ".aps" and be recognized as an S/MIME message.

G. Acknowledgements

Significant contributions to the content of this draft were made by many
people, including Jeff Thompson and Jeff Weinstein.

H. Authors' addresses

Steve Dusse
RSA Data Security, Inc. 
100 Marine Parkway, #500 
Redwood City, CA  94065  USA  
(415) 595-8782
spock@rsa.com

Paul Hoffman
Internet Mail Consortium
127 Segre Place
Santa Cruz, CA  95060
(408) 426-9827
phoffman@imc.org

Blake Ramsdell
Worldtalk
13122 NE 20th St., Suite C
Bellevue, WA 98005
(425) 882-8861
blaker@deming.com

Laurence Lundblade
QUALCOMM Incorporated
Eudora Division 
6455 Lusk Boulevard 
San Diego, California 92121-2779
(800) 238-3672
lgl@qualcomm.com

Lisa Repka
Netscape Communications Corporation
501 East Middlefield Road
Mountain View, CA  94043
(415) 254-1900
repka@netscape.com