I am wondering why is there a need for two secure email standards. If I am not completely wrong, nowadays PGP and SMIME essentially provide more or less the same functionality.
In the past, the difference was that PGP build on a web of trust, whereas SMIME always used a third trusted party. But in the meantime I think you can configure also PGP also with a CA. Further, PGP was intended to just encrypt plain mail messages while SMIME could also decrypt attachments. But in the meantime I am sure PGP can do the same.
So the question is: Is there any difference between these two protocols?
Many thanks, Andrew
OpenPGP is data encryption and signing standard. It's use in securing e-mails is called (Open)PGP/MIME and it is a combination of OpenPGP and MIME. PGP/MIME is not widely used nowadays. S/MIME on the other hand is supported by most mail clients and mail processing applications.
The problem with S/MIME is a non-trivial procedure to obtain certificates for e-mail signing. From this point of view PGP/MIME is more handy (at least or occasional uses).
Just a note: our SecureBlackbox product offer support for all of the above mentioned technologies, so I have extensive experience with them.