PGP Message Exchange Formats
RFC 1991
Document | Type |
RFC - Informational
(August 1996; No errata)
Obsoleted by RFC 4880
Was draft-atkins-pgpformat (individual)
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|
---|---|---|---|
Authors | Philip Zimmermann , Derek Atkins , William Stallings | ||
Last updated | 2013-03-02 | ||
Stream | Legacy | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized bibtex | ||
Stream | Legacy state | (None) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
RFC Editor Note | (None) | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 1991 (Informational) | |
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | (None) | ||
Send notices to | (None) |
Network Working Group D. Atkins Request for Comments: 1991 MIT Category: Informational W. Stallings Comp-Comm Consulting P. Zimmermann Boulder Software Engineering August 1996 PGP Message Exchange Formats Status of This Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Table of Contents 1. Introduction............................................2 2. PGP Services............................................2 2.1 Digital signature.......................................3 2.2 Confidentiality.........................................3 2.3 Compression.............................................4 2.4 Radix-64 conversion.....................................4 2.4.1 ASCII Armor Formats.....................................5 3. Data Element Formats....................................6 3.1 Byte strings............................................6 3.2 Whole number fields.....................................7 3.3 Multiprecision fields...................................7 3.4 String fields...........................................8 3.5 Time fields.............................................8 4. Common Fields...........................................8 4.1 Packet structure fields.................................8 4.2 Number ID fields.......................................10 4.3 Version fields.........................................10 5. Packets................................................10 5.1 Overview...............................................10 5.2 General Packet Structure...............................11 5.2.1 Message component......................................11 5.2.2 Signature component....................................11 5.2.3 Session key component..................................11 6. PGP Packet Types.......................................12 6.1 Literal data packets...................................12 6.2 Signature packets......................................13 6.2.1 Message-digest-related fields..........................14 6.2.2 Public-key-related fields..............................15 6.2.3 RSA signatures.........................................16 Atkins, et. al. Informational [Page 1] RFC 1991 PGP Message Exchange Formats August 1996 6.2.4 Miscellaneous fields...................................16 6.3 Compressed data packets................................17 6.4 Conventional-key-encrypted data packets................17 6.4.1 Conventional-encryption type byte......................18 6.5 Public-key-encrypted packets...........................18 6.5.1 RSA-encrypted data encryption key (DEK)................19 6.6 Public-key Packets.....................................19 6.7 User ID packets........................................20 7. Transferable Public Keys...............................20 8. Acknowledgments........................................20 9. Security Considerations................................21 10. Authors' Addresses.....................................21 1. Introduction PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) uses a combination of public-key and conventional encryption to provide security services for electronic mail messages and data files. These services include confidentiality and digital signature. PGP is widely used throughout the global computer community. This document describes the format of "PGP files", i.e., messages that have been encrypted and/or signed with PGP. PGP was created by Philip Zimmermann and first released, in Version 1.0, in 1991. Subsequent versions have been designed and implemented by an all-volunteer collaborative effort under the design guidance of Philip Zimmermann. PGP and Pretty Good Privacy are trademarks of Philip Zimmermann. This document describes versions 2.x of PGP. Specifically, versions 2.6 and 2.7 conform to this specification. Version 2.3 conforms to this specification with minor differences. A new release of PGP, known as PGP 3.0, is anticipated in 1995. To the maximum extent possible, this version will be upwardly compatible with version 2.x. At a minimum, PGP 3.0 will be able to read messages and signatures produced by version 2.x. 2. PGP Services PGP provides four services related to the format of messages and data files: digital signature, confidentiality, compression, and radix-64Show full document text