RFC 3274 · PROPOSED STANDARD · 2002

Compressed Data Content Type for Cryptographic Message Syntax

Overview

RFC 3274, “Compressed Data Content Type for Cryptographic Message Syntax”, is a Proposed Standard document published in June 2002 by P. Gutmann. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.

Abstract

This document defines a format for using compressed data as a Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) content type. Compressing data before transmission provides a number of advantages, including the elimination of data redundancy which could help an attacker, speeding up processing by reducing the amount of data to be processed by later steps (such as signing or encryption), and reducing overall message size. Although there have been proposals for adding compression at other levels (for example at the MIME or SSL level), these don't address the problem of compression of CMS content unless the compression is supplied by an external means (for example by intermixing MIME and CMS). [STANDARDS-TRACK]

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Proposed Standard” means

An entry-level standards-track specification: stable, peer-reviewed and a solid basis for implementation, though it may still evolve before becoming an Internet Standard.

Read this RFC

The canonical text of RFC 3274 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in TXT,HTML.

Other RFCs from 2002

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