204277 - Message Security dialog misdiagnoses absent decryption key

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Security: S/MIME, defect)

Description

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

I have several S/MIME IMAPS email clients, mozilla and others.  Using one 
of the others, I obtained a new cert and sent a signed message to another 
user.  That user replied with a signed and encrypted message to me.  I read 
his signed and encrypted message using mozilla.  The mozilal profile I was
using did not have my new cert or its private key, so clearly mozilla could
not have decrypted it.  

Mozilla showed a broken key icon, which implies invalid encryption.  When 
I clicked on that icon, I got a dialog window that said that the message
was not encrypted (!).  It should have said that I do not have the cert and
private key to decrypt the message.    

This misdiagnosis of the problem leads to false bug reports.  Instead of 
pointing out the problem that is (or may be) user correctable, it appears
that mozilla is simply buggy and cannot read the encrypted email.  

I wonder if the recent bug reports about mozilla not being able to read
encrypted emails sent by other email clients actually is caused by this!

Comment 1

[John G. Myers]

Mass reassign ssaux bugs to nobody