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This page explains the most important terms and acronyms in order to help understanding the Ägypten project. Please inform us about further words/acronyms not clear in their meaning.

Assuan

Advanced Security System Unit Architecture Network. Assuan is a framework for module communication within the Ägypten project

Imhotep

Imhotep was meant to be a dialog agent for Ägypten. It can run dialogs on a variety of platforms (e.g. terminal or X). The dialogs are described by Qt Designer XML files. The Imhotep concept has been postponed and will not be implemented within the Ägypten project. It has turned out to be more practicable to implement most dialogs right inside the mail-software. All dialogs around the PIN entry are covered by the special module 'pinentry'.

MIME

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. An IETF standard that allows for mails containing non-ASCII text and non-textual data among other things. MIME is specified in several RFCs, most notably 2045 ff.

MUA

Mail User Agent. The mail program used by a user to read, compose and send mail

OpenPGP

OpenPGP A protocol for using PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) or compatible software such as GPG for encrypted email on the internet. It also supports other applications of cryptography in email, such signed mails.

PKIX

Public Key Infrastructure (X.509) (IETF Working Group)

S/MIME

Secure/MIME provides a method to send and receive secure MIME messages

Sphinx

A test-project for "End-to-end Security for the Exchange of Documents" initiated by the 'Koordinierungs- und Beratungsstelle der Bundesregierung' (procurement department of the ministry of interior) in conjunction with the 'Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik' (German information security agency)

X.509

X.509 is an ITU standard defining a framework for authentication services. For the internet, X.509 is defined by RFC 2510f.

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