[ ayttm-Bugs-746397 ] aycryption on large messages

Bugs item #746397, was opened at 2003-05-31 04:44
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by siddheshp
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Category: Aycryption
Group: None
>Status: Closed
>Resolution: Rejected
Priority: 3
Private: No
Submitted By: Sean Dague (sdague)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: aycryption on large messages

Initial Comment:
If the messages size is too large (over about 400
characters), then aycryption fails.  It just produces
either:

(null) [Got an uncrypted message with no signature.]

or the GPG start header

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- 
Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) 
 
with part of an encrypted message after it

I can provide sample text that works and fails if
needed, but copying something from any website usually
will put it over the edge if its more than 1 paragraph.

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>Comment By: Siddhesh Poyarekar (siddheshp)
Date: 2010-10-03 16:58

Message:
This is not possible due to service message length limits.

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Comment By: Colin Leroy (colinleroy)
Date: 2003-05-31 15:16

Message:
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I enlarged some static buffers. Maybe it'll be better. Still
if a message is longer than service-allowed maximum it will
fail. Dunno how to fix it cleanly...

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Comment By: Ben Reser (breser)
Date: 2003-05-31 11:42

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The issue is not unique to MSN.  AIM does it too.  I don't
think it's random.

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Comment By: Colin Leroy (colinleroy)
Date: 2003-05-31 06:17

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does it happen when using MSN or other service ? I noticed
MSN server seems to randomly truncate messages containing
"---- BEGIN PGP MESSAGE".

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Comment By: Ben Reser (breser)
Date: 2003-05-31 05:17

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I'm not sure these are the same issue... The first one is
what was displayed when kopete was modifying the message
with <br/>'s so if your'e trying to interoperate with kopete
you'll need the patch that is in CVS.

The issue with size isn't so much about the size of your
text but a couple of factors.  The amount of text, if you
have encryption and/or signing turned on, the size of the
person who's key your are sending to if encrypting, and the
size of your key if signing.  Unfortunately what I believe
is happening is that the message when encrypted/signed
exceeds the size of the maximum message for the service you
are using.

Work arounds would be, have users decrease their key
lengths, don't use signing but only encryption or vice versa
depending on what your requirements are, try to type shorter
messages...

Ultimately the solution will be to either spit out an error
message that the message is too long or find some way of
splitting the message and then putting it back together. 
The latter will likely break interoperability with kopete
unless wih cordinate with them.  I haven't had a chance to
see what they do (if anything) about this problem.

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