gpgsm for S/MIME (was Re: Bug#6654)

[David Engster <deng@randomsample.de>]

Dave Goldberg writes:
> I'll have to try that patch as decrypting and viewing is nearly as
> important to me as being able to encrypt :-) If not, do the back ends
> allow one to use gpgsm for sending and the old openssl mode for
> reading?

Yes. Actually, that's what currently happening for decrypting S/MIME, so
if you've already got through the tedious openssl setup, you should be
fine.

The main advantage of gpgsm is that is has adopted the GPG-style key
management for certificates, so it's pretty straightforward to use. If
you verify a signed mail, you'll automatically have the sender's
certificate for future use. With openssl, I used a pretty lengthy code
snippet to snarf the certificate, save it and put a link to it in the
BBDB.

Also, the gpg-agent will take care of securely asking for passwords and
caching (although this can be a disadvantage if you're working on the
console; it is not always clear on which tty the dialog will pop up, but
you can always "seed" the agent with the password beforehand).

-David