Re: [openpgp] Deprecating compression support

[Andre Heinecke <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

Vincent said that my mail was too rambling. I agree. Here is the short 
Version:

* Compression is good and necessary.
* Standardized compression is good.
* I don't want to use unstandardized compression only because you do not want 
to implement compression in sequoia.
* There is no reason the change the standard. Compression has been around for 
ages. It is _standard_ and working well.

-----------
Here is where annoyed rambling about unproductive suggestions starts:

> - Compression makes it impossible to reason about the size of a
>    decrypted message, requiring the use of a streaming interface even
 >   for seemingly small messages, e.g. emails.  Experience has shown
>    that downstream users struggle with the correct use of streaming
 >   interfaces.

Whose expericence? Not mine. It's OpenPGP and S/MIME. You have to handle this 
even if you don't like it. Compression does not change this.

> - Compression allows the construction of quines.

Yeah that sucks. But a downstream application would still be affected. e.g. a 
MUA or Kleopatra if you move compresssion out of the standard.

>  - Compression interacts badly with encryption, see e.g. CRIME,
>    BREACH, and hiding of EFAIL-style CFB gadgets [0].

*rolleyes* Was OpenPGP affected? Nope.

> - The downstream application is in a better position to decide whether
>    and how to compress data that is then encrypted using OpenPGP.

Nope. Because the downstream application does not know anything about the 
sending application because it is not standardized in you proposal.

  >- Compression make the standard more complex, and enlarges the
  >  trusted computing base of implementations.

Nope. Removing it makes handling it more complex because we are working with a 
well established standard. So you still need to handle old messages so you 
still need to handle compression. But Oh! Now you also have to handle non-
standard compression. Fun! Complexity -> Increase!


Regards,
Andre

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