S/MIME support

[Ulf Stegemann <ulf@zeitform.de>]

Hi,

since S/MIME seems to spread more and more (at least among the people I
communicate with) I'd like to ask if there are any plans to enhance Gnus'
S/MIME support.

I haven't been able to follow the Gnus development very closely since the
release of 5.10.6 nor have I tried any of the development releases for a long
time.  Thus, my observations refer to 5.10.6.  A quick look at the relevant
newsgroups did not reveal any messages on that topic lately.  Furthermore
smime.el and mml-smime.el haven't changed very much since 5.10.6.

First of all: S/MIME works, i.e. signing/encrypting and verifying/decrypting
does not pose a problem.  However, compared to PGP S/MIME handling is rather
clumsy.

To me, the biggest problem when using S/MIME with Gnus is the key
(certificate) management.  This may not be Gnus' fault since an appropriate
external tool for S/MIME certificate management (like GnuPG for PGP keys)
seems to be missing.  I've once seen a tool called smime-keys that comes with
mutt but this one offers rather basic functions.  Currently there's no
auto-magical selection of recipient certificates and no 'encrypt-to-self'
(although, macros could help here).  The absence of appropriate S/MIME tools
leaves the question if it's reasonable to build something using elisp or if
it's better to wait for something like gpgsm to become more stable/usable and
use such a tool with Gnus.

Furthermore, LDAP support is a nice thing to have with S/MIME (especially for
CRLs).  Maybe, eudc could help here?

To summerize it: Gnus' S/MIME support is rather rudimentary.  Other user
agents (especially those that come with browser suits) outdo Gnus regarding
S/MIME.  S/MIME seems to/may become more and more important.

Regarding that, is it worth it to think about improving Gnus' S/MIME
capabilities?  Are there plans to do so?  Or is it all a very bad idea and
are there more important things to do?


Regards,

Ulf

-- 
Obscure RFCs you may not be aware of, part v:
RFC 2325 - Definitions of Managed Objects for Drip-Type Heated Beverage
           Hardware Devices using SMIv2