Re: PGP 5.0 MessageID

Derek Atkins (warlord@MIT.EDU)
16 Nov 1998 13:18:40 -0500

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The purpose of the MessageID is to aid the PGP decryption processor in
identifying multiple parts of the same message. Basically, you can
feed multiple multi-part PGP messages into the PGP Decryptor at the
same time. Indeed, you can supply the parts in any order, intermixed
in any way. The MessageID is used to help combine the pieces properly
(for example, to differentiate between multiple N-part messages for
the same 'N').

-derek

PS: It doesn't leak information from the RNG, as the RNG output is
whitened before it is released.

Andreas Bogk <ich@andreas.org> writes:

>
> Hi!
>
> Does anybody know what purpose the MessageID in the PGP 5.0 ASCII armoring
> serves, and why I wouldn't want to turn it off immediately, since it
> leaks state from the random number generator used for generating the
> session key?
>
> Andreas
>
> --
> Gwydion Dylan Development -> http://www.randomhacks.com/dylan
> "We're fully buzzword-compliant."

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord@MIT.EDU                        PGP key available

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