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Decrypt a MIME message
What is PGP/MIME
You get a strange e-mail message: The body of the e-mail (the text) is blank, and you have two attachments:
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The first one is called Part 1.1 or has similar names. If you open this file with Windows' Notepad program, you see that it has only one line in it, namely “Version 1”. |
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The name of the second one could be PGP.asc, but it could also be different. It is a text file, but if you open the second file, e.g. with Notepad, its text is all gibberish: this is the e-mail message text and/or attachments altogether in one encrypted file. |
Now you know you got an encrypted MIME message.
PGP/MIME is a way to encrypt text and attachment files of one e-mail message together in one file. As your e-mail program cannot tease text and attachments apart (it would have to decrypt the message first), it leaves the whole thing pretty much untouched and delivers it to you in the form of two attachment files. (Another similar format is S/MIME, an encryption not done with the PGP standard. InstantCrypt cannot read S/MIME).
How to Handle PGP/MIME with InstantCrypt
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1 |
Ignore the first file (Part 1.1) |
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Import the second file into InstantCrypt in the File View into the window for the encrypted files. |
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Decrypt it as you would any encrypted file (Click on Decrypt button, enter passphrase, etc.) |
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The result can be e-mail text alone, e-mail text and attachments, or only attachments. |
Writing PGP/MIME?
InstantCrypt cannot write PGP/MIME files. It can only encrypt files and text separately.