Re: [imapext] General Request for Assignment (imap-keywords) (was: [JMAP] SMIME Attachments)

[Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>]

Vaibhav left off one significant bit of my review:

4.  ...the term “attachment” is a bit odd in today’s usage.  Messages
may have multiple parts.  Whether some or all of those parts appear to
the user as “attachments” depends upon the rendering.  For example, a
two-part message that is multipart/alternative... is there an
“attachment”?  How about a single-part message that is image/jpeg,
with no text at all?  What about if I forward a message and the
forwarded message is included as a separate message/rfc822 part rather
than being included in the main text?

Barry


On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 11:10 PM, vaibhav singh
<[e-mail]> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> In order to optimize the way attachments inside encrypted mail are treated
> by the MUA, I am suggesting the registration of a "$HasEncryptedAttachment"
> to the IMAP Keywords registry[RFC5788].
>
> Please find details of the original proposal below:
>
>> Type of Assignment:
>>  Requesting for addition of a keyword "$HasEncryptedAttachment" to the
>> IMAP Keywords registry[RFC5788].
>>
>> Registry:
>> The registration request is being made for IMAP Keywords
>> registry[RFC5788].
>>
>> Description:
>>     This flag can be useful so that the MUA can display an attachment
>> icon when displaying
>>    messages in the folder, without it having to decrypt the message.
>> This flag can also be used to filter
>>    encrypted emails with attachments.
>>
>> Additional Info:
>>  The $HasEncryptedAttachment IMAP keyword will be used by IMAP/JMAP
>> MUA to
>>    specify that the marked encrypted message contains an attachment.
>> A MUA-with-keys
>>    sets this keyword when it sees a message having an attachment
>> before encryption.
>>     This flag can be useful so that the MUA can display an attachment
>> icon when displaying
>>    messages in the folder, without it having to decrypt the message.
>> This flag can also be used to filter
>>    encrypted emails with attachments.
>>
>> Once set, any entity (be it the MDA or receiver's MUA) SHOULD not edit
>> the flag.
>>
>> JMAP Message Stores SHOULD be able to store the
>> $HasEncryptedAttachment keyword.
>> They MUST preserve it on the COPY operation.  The servers MUST
>> support the SEARCH KEYWORD $HasEncryptedAttachment.
>
> Please find comments by Mr. Barry Leiba, and my answers below (marked as
> <vs>):
>
> 1.) There should also be a “has no attachment” keyword, so the MUA doesn’t
> have to check either way and only needs to check if neither is set.
>
>  <vs>  Agreed. </vs>
>
> 2.) The keyword is poorly named: it’s not about an encrypted attachment, but
> about any attachment.  I suppose that in the end there no reason to mention
> encryption at all, because it could be used for any message, though it’s
> less important for unencrypted ones.
>
>  <vs> Not really sure. </vs>
>
> 3.) How will the server know to set the keyword?  The server also can’t
> decrypt an incoming message, and so it can’t check.  Where does the
> knowledge come from?  It seems that it could only work for messages that are
> created locally, with the keyword set at creation.
>
>   <vs> A better use case for the flag could be: the server could set this
> flag to true when it sees the mime being decrypted the first time, so that
> any scans later on would not have to decrypt the mail again to know the
> presence of the attachment inside it </vs>
>
> Will this be useful?
>
> --
>
> Regards,
> Vaibhav Singh
>
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