RFC 1847 (rfc1847) - Page 1 of 11

Security Multiparts for MIME: Multipart/Signed and Multipart/Encrypted

Network Working Group                                          J. Galvin
Request For Comments: 1847                                     S. Murphy
Category: Standards Track                    Trusted Information Systems
                                                              S. Crocker
                                                         CyberCash, Inc.
                                                                N. Freed
                                            Innosoft International, Inc.
                                                            October 1995


                     Security Multiparts for MIME:
                Multipart/Signed and Multipart/Encrypted

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   This document defines a framework within which security services may
   be applied to MIME body parts.  MIME, an acronym for "Multipurpose
   Internet Mail Extensions", defines the format of the contents of
   Internet mail messages and provides for multi-part textual and non-
   textual message bodies.  The new content types are subtypes of
   multipart: signed and encrypted.  Each will contain two body parts:
   one for the protected data and one for the control information
   necessary to remove the protection.  The type and contents of the
   control information body parts are determined by the value of the
   protocol parameter of the enclosing multipart/signed or
   multipart/encrypted content type, which is required to be present.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction ..............................................    2
   2.  Definition of Security Subtypes of Multipart ..............    2
   2.1   Definition of Multipart/Signed ..........................    3
   2.2   Definition of Multipart/Encrypted .......................    6
   3.  Definition of Control Information Content Types ...........    9
   4.  Definition of Key Management Content Types ................    9
   5.  Security Considerations ...................................   10
   6.  Acknowledgements ..........................................   10
   7.  References ................................................   10
   8.  Authors' Addresses ........................................   11




Galvin, et al               Standards Track