OpenPGP Message Format
RFC 2440
Document | Type |
RFC - Proposed Standard
(November 1998; No errata)
Obsoleted by RFC 4880
|
|
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Authors | Hal Finney , Rodney Thayer , Lutz Donnerhacke , Jon Callas | ||
Last updated | 2013-03-02 | ||
Stream | IETF | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized bibtex | ||
Stream | WG state | (None) | |
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 2440 (Proposed Standard) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | (None) | ||
Send notices to | (None) |
Network Working Group J. Callas Request for Comments: 2440 Network Associates Category: Standards Track L. Donnerhacke IN-Root-CA Individual Network e.V. H. Finney Network Associates R. Thayer EIS Corporation November 1998 OpenPGP Message Format Status of this Memo This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved. IESG Note This document defines many tag values, yet it doesn't describe a mechanism for adding new tags (for new features). Traditionally the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) handles the allocation of new values for future expansion and RFCs usually define the procedure to be used by the IANA. However, there are subtle (and not so subtle) interactions that may occur in this protocol between new features and existing features which result in a significant reduction in over all security. Therefore, this document does not define an extension procedure. Instead requests to define new tag values (say for new encryption algorithms for example) should be forwarded to the IESG Security Area Directors for consideration or forwarding to the appropriate IETF Working Group for consideration. Abstract This document is maintained in order to publish all necessary information needed to develop interoperable applications based on the OpenPGP format. It is not a step-by-step cookbook for writing an application. It describes only the format and methods needed to read, check, generate, and write conforming packets crossing any network. It does not deal with storage and implementation questions. It does, Callas, et. al. Standards Track [Page 1] RFC 2440 OpenPGP Message Format November 1998 however, discuss implementation issues necessary to avoid security flaws. Open-PGP software uses a combination of strong public-key and symmetric cryptography to provide security services for electronic communications and data storage. These services include confidentiality, key management, authentication, and digital signatures. This document specifies the message formats used in OpenPGP. Table of Contents Status of this Memo 1 IESG Note 1 Abstract 1 Table of Contents 2 1. Introduction 4 1.1. Terms 5 2. General functions 5 2.1. Confidentiality via Encryption 5 2.2. Authentication via Digital signature 6 2.3. Compression 7 2.4. Conversion to Radix-64 7 2.5. Signature-Only Applications 7 3. Data Element Formats 7 3.1. Scalar numbers 8 3.2. Multi-Precision Integers 8 3.3. Key IDs 8 3.4. Text 8 3.5. Time fields 9 3.6. String-to-key (S2K) specifiers 9 3.6.1. String-to-key (S2k) specifier types 9 3.6.1.1. Simple S2K 9 3.6.1.2. Salted S2K 10 3.6.1.3. Iterated and Salted S2K 10 3.6.2. String-to-key usage 11 3.6.2.1. Secret key encryption 11 3.6.2.2. Symmetric-key message encryption 11 4. Packet Syntax 12 4.1. Overview 12Show full document text