Bug 291331

Summary:	kmail always sends PGP signatures as PGP/MIME - no option setting for "inline"
Product:	[Applications] kmail2	Reporter:	Stefan Gofferje <stefan>
Component:	composer	Assignee:	kdepim bugs <kdepim-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Severity:	major	CC:	cfeck, firebird, montel, sknauss
Priority:	NOR
Version:	4.7
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	openSUSE
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Stefan Gofferje 2012-01-12 06:02:33 UTC

Version:           unspecified (using KDE 4.7.2) 
OS:                Linux

Kmail2 always sends PGP signatures as PGP/MIME. There is no settings option to force inline signatures.
This makes the whole PGP function  of kmail2 essentially useless because there are a number of email clients - mainly for Windows - which cannot handle PGP/MIME and don't display the message or lose attachments.

Do NOT answer that any standard compliant email client would have to be able to handle it because as a matter of fact, there are client which can't and you will not - whatever you do - convince an organisation like the Finnish government or major companies to use different software, just because you'd like so.
Inline signatures have been common for many years and there is no reason to force people to use PGP/MIME.

I repeat, this IS a bug and it renders kmail2 essentially useless for anyone who must communicate by email with major companies or governmental agencies.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
PGP-sign a message in kmail2


Expected Results:  
Ability to send messages with inline PGP signature

Comment 1 Laurent Montel 2012-08-16 14:25:16 UTC

inline signature ?

Comment 2 Myriam Schweingruber 2012-08-18 21:33:55 UTC

What he means is clear-signing in application/PGP mode, see also http://www.phildev.net/pgp/pgp_clear_vs_mime.html

FWIW: The only mail client I know that doesn't handle PGP/MIME is Outlook Express, even more recent Outlook versions are now able to handle it, so this is not something I would consider important to implement. If there are indeed government agencies out there that still use Outlook Express then  they have a serious problem which is not ours to fix.

Comment 3 firebird 2013-01-03 21:02:33 UTC

(In reply to comment #2)
> FWIW: The only mail client I know that doesn't handle PGP/MIME is Outlook
> Express, even more recent Outlook versions are now able to handle it, so
> this is not something I would consider important to implement. If there are
> indeed government agencies out there that still use Outlook Express then 
> they have a serious problem which is not ours to fix.

Thunderbird is unable to check my signatures sent from KMail2 - no problem from my Phone with K-9 Mail which uses the inline style - so i guess there are a lot more clients affected.

Comment 4 Sandro Knauß 2013-03-26 23:45:19 UTC

There is a option to select inline signing:
Options->Cryptomatic Message Format-> Inline OpenPGP (deprecated)

(In reply to comment #3)
> Thunderbird is unable to check my signatures sent from KMail2 - no problem
> from my Phone with K-9 Mail which uses the inline style - so i guess there
> are a lot more clients affected.
That the signatures aren't vailid sended from kmail2 is another bug, but should be fixed in 4.10.2. If not, please create a new bug report for it.