Lotus Protector for Mail Encryption (LPME) encounters UTF-8 errors when processing RightFax Fax Emails

Products

• Encryption Management Server

Issue/Introduction

Lotus Protector for Mail Encryption (LPME) or Symantec Encryption Management Server (SEMS - formerly known as PGP Universal Server) encounters UTF-8 errors when processing RightFax Fax Emails.

There is potential for Lotus Protector for Mail Encryption (LPME) or SEMS to encounter UTF-8 errors if attempting to send/forward certain RightFax fax email content through the LPME Server.

 

Cause

LPME or SEMS are RFC compliant servers and when encountering illegal characters/formatting in messages, a UTF-8 error may be displayed.

When sending a RightFax fax email, several Quoted Printable (QP) encoded attachments may cause this.

 

One cause of this issue is due to a RightFax Fax EMail "Charset" parameter missing in the "Content-Type" MIME header of the message.

 

If a file was called OCR.TXT, below is an example of this problematic formatting in the header:

Content-Type: text/plain; name="OCR.TXT"
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="OCR.TXT"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

 

This is an example of the expected value for a properly formatted header:

 

Content-Type: text/plain; name="OCR.TXT";charset=utf-8
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="OCR.TXT"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

 

The proper value missing is in the first line of the header in this example is called:

;charset=utf-8"

 

Resolution

The following methods may be used as workarounds to this issue:

 

Method 1:
Use only Base64 encoding when composing these RightFax Fax Emails.

 

Method 2:
Add the "charset" parameter in the "Content-Type" mime header for QP encoded messages.

 

Ensuring these illegal QP encoded headers are not missing will avoid this issue.

 

Method 3:
Do not forward these fax emails with the text files, and only send picture files, or pdf files.

 

Another workaround to this if changing the encoding type, or modifying the Content-Type fields is not possible is to remove the attachments as they appear and either zip them up, or send them another method.