Subject: Re: partial packet lengths in PGP 8

From: "Hal Finney" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 15:02:48 -0700

Michael Young writes:

> The specification includes a stronger requirement, in section 4.2.3:
>     "The first partial length MUST be at least 512 octets long."

I hadn't noticed that.  I think that requirement is not in a very good
place, buried in section 4.2.3 which is titled "Packet Length Examples".
That's not where an implementor would expect to find MUST rules regarding
partial body lengths.

I suggest that the following text:

   An implementation MAY use Partial Body Lengths for data packets, be
   they literal, compressed, or encrypted. The first partial length MUST
   be at least 512 octets long. Partial Body Lengths MUST NOT be used
   for any other packet types.

   Note also that the last Body Length header can be a zero-length header.

be moved from 4.2.3 to section 4.2.2.4, Partial Body Lengths.  Also I
moved the "Note also" sentence to after the paragraph as you see.

I am using section numbers from RFC2440, I don't have the new version in
front of me at the moment, so they might have different numbers there.

Hal

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From: Jon Callas <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 15:45:44 -0700

> moved the "Note also" sentence to after the paragraph as you see.

I moved them.

    Jon