Email encryption strength more than 40-bit ? (Windows Mail, Vista)

[Mike]

Dear all

I just tried to send digitally signed/encrypted messages with Win Mail under
Vista Home Premium.

On the one hand, there is a built-in warning option for encryption below
64/128/168 bit, but on the other hand I cannot see where I can influence the
encryption strength. Actually my message seems to be sent by Windows Mail
with 40-bit encryption automatically, and I get the warning about this
strength, but where can I change?

I am using a RSA certificate of more than 2048bit with SHA-1.

Best regards
Mike

 

[Guest]

Dear all

I just tried to send digitally signed/encrypted messages with Win Mail
under Vista Home Premium.

On the one hand, there is a built-in warning option for encryption below
64/128/168 bit, but on the other hand I cannot see where I can influence
the encryption strength. Actually my message seems to be sent by Windows
Mail with 40-bit encryption automatically, and I get the warning about
this strength, but where can I change?

I am using a RSA certificate of more than 2048bit with SHA-1.

Best regards
Mike

I think I've read that some countries outside the US are not allowed
to use the higher strengths, but I don't remember details such as
which countries.

 

[Mike]

I understand that such export limitations do not longer apply. For example,
my Explorer states that 256-bit encryption is enabled.
My country is Germany.

I found an article at support.MS
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/262003/en-us) which says that Outlook
Express behaved this way because of the S/MIME2 default and it should not
apply if OE "knows" that the recipient can handle S/MIME3 standard.

Unfortunately there is no hint how to tell OE (or WinMail) that S/MIME3
should be used for recipient XY manually or however.

Best regards
Mike