On 12/6/26 6:34 pm, Andy Burns wrote:

I had never heard of MSIP viewer before today ...

Phoned up my opticians to ask for a copy of my prescription, they
offered to email it (without asking any details about my email setup)
and what arrived was an encrypted attachment in .rpmsg format.

"How's that supposed to work?" I wondered.

I found the viewer client but there is no association between my home
email (pure SMTP/IMAP) address and either the MSA I use when needed on
this PC, or my work M365 account, and as suspected even signing in with
MFA didn't allow viewing the attachment.

In the end I phoned the optician back, and they re-sent it in .pdf and
all was well, it sounds like they were used to the encryption option
failing, so why would they try to use it without at least asking
something along the lines of "Do you use outlook/hotmail?"

Anyone come across it?

I've never seen it, but I found this page

https://www.shoviv.com/blog/what-is-an-rpmsg-file-and-how-do-i-open-it/

that explains it and how to deal with it. It can apparently only be
used by Outlook users or those with a Microsoft account who are prepared
to go through the hoops explained on the page above - not me, and I
expect no-one else either. If a business wishes to encrypt its mail it
should make sure that the recipient can read it first - or they will
have very few customers left. Usually, firms use a scrambled file with a
key known by, or previously securely sent to, the recipient.


--
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.16
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, 6/12/2026 1:34 PM, Andy Burns wrote:

I had never heard of MSIP viewer before today ...

Phoned up my opticians to ask for a copy of my prescription, they offered to email it (without asking any details about my email setup) and what arrived was an encrypted attachment in .rpmsg format.

"How's that supposed to work?" I wondered.

I found the viewer client but there is no association between my home email (pure SMTP/IMAP) address and either the MSA I use when needed on this PC, or my work M365 account, and as suspected even signing in with MFA didn't allow viewing the attachment.

In the end I phoned the optician back, and they re-sent it in .pdf and all was well, it sounds like they were used to the encryption option failing, so why would they try to use it without at least asking something along the lines of "Do you use outlook/hotmail?"

Anyone come across it?

There's more to it than that.

A recipient must be a defined part of the domain where these things work.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1164345/how-do-you-open-an-rpmsg-file

In the Microsoft BUILD 2015, there was a presentation on a subsystem
which would allow the military version of Windows 10 to have
"Secret" and "Top Secret" items. And this could only work, if an IT
person added the metadata, to define how to identify documents,
which disk(s) were to be handled securely and so on. It was not
the kind of thing that "just worked by itself, out of the box".

Message Encryption

Deploy Double Key Encryption

Under all circumstances, only your organization can ever decrypt protected content or for
regulatory requirements, you must hold encryption keys within a geographical boundary.
Encrypts email messages and attached documents that are sent to any user on any device,
so only authorized recipients can read emailed information.

The .rpmsg format "might" work in the opticians office, when optician sends prescription to helper-bee-number-three, but sending the same thing to
a customer isn't going to work, as they're not authorized. So in fact,
it is "working as intended" and the intent is to be a "giant wall of failure". Which it has done in your case.

It is up to the sender of such attachments, to "have a clue" :-)

This is probably just some HIPAA package they bought :-)
Which didn't come with training.

The New Outlook doesn't support it, but some legacy Outlook
might have at least "handled" it.

It's like when the city digs a hole in the street, doesn't
put up barriers, and a few pedestrians fall in. Working
as intended. I ran into a situation like this, within the
last two weeks on my "main road". Out of the blue, they
had dug up the street. It did not have the look of a
water main break (where you get piles of gravel, and
heavy machines are left around the hole). Two police cars
with flashing lights, were turning cars around and
sending them away, and if it were not for the police cars,
there would have been "stuff, in the hole". Like, they didn't
even use the portable wooden barriers, as a "visual hint" of the
danger. No fucking cones. Just seeing police cars around here, does not immediately imply "stop!". We quite often plonk police cars
with flashing lights, with nobody in them, so no one suspects
there is a reason to "stop!".

Well, this is similar. You have received a message attachment,
which could not possibly work, so now "please fall into the hole
as intended, thank you" :-)

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.16
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 6/13/2026 6:01 AM, Andy Burns wrote:

Daniel70 wrote:

Bob Henson wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

Phoned up my opticians to ask for a copy of my prescription, they
offered to email it (without asking any details about my email setup)
and what arrived was an encrypted attachment in .rpmsg format.

I found this page
https://www.shoviv.com/blog/what-is-an-rpmsg-file-and-how-do-i-open-it/

that explains it and how to deal with it. It can apparently only be used by Outlook users or those with a Microsoft account

Could it be a program used between one optician and another optician to transfer Customer Data??

Oh no, the optician is the dominant UK high-street chain, and they were well aware I was a customer, rather than some other optician.

Even though there's nothing amazingly sensitive in the .pdf, I can sort of understand it'd be good to encrypt it,
except there's zero hope of it working without anyone actively setting up the encryption keys.

It would be a HIPPA requirement or a HIPPA-like requirement.

It's not a surprise the information is protected. The
surprise is the individual doing it, not knowing where
the information is going. Maybe the attachment could be
read by a registered practitioner ? But then that packaging
scheme is likely to only work for a single ("addressed") practitioner.

Paul



--- PyGate Linux v1.5.16
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-06-12, Bob Henson <q59qr3wnw@mozmail.com> wrote:

On 12/6/26 6:34 pm, Andy Burns wrote:

I had never heard of MSIP viewer before today ...

Phoned up my opticians to ask for a copy of my prescription, they
offered to email it (without asking any details about my email setup)
and what arrived was an encrypted attachment in .rpmsg format.

"How's that supposed to work?" I wondered.

I found the viewer client but there is no association between my home
email (pure SMTP/IMAP) address and either the MSA I use when needed on
this PC, or my work M365 account, and as suspected even signing in with
MFA didn't allow viewing the attachment.

In the end I phoned the optician back, and they re-sent it in .pdf and
all was well, it sounds like they were used to the encryption option
failing, so why would they try to use it without at least asking
something along the lines of "Do you use outlook/hotmail?"

Anyone come across it?

I've never seen it, but I found this page

https://www.shoviv.com/blog/what-is-an-rpmsg-file-and-how-do-i-open-it/

that explains it and how to deal with it. It can apparently only be
used by Outlook users or those with a Microsoft account who are prepared
to go through the hoops explained on the page above - not me, and I
expect no-one else either. If a business wishes to encrypt its mail it should make sure that the recipient can read it first - or they will
have very few customers left. Usually, firms use a scrambled file with a
key known by, or previously securely sent to, the recipient.

If something is sent encrypted it needs to be decrpted by the receiver to be
of any use. It is a good idea for the company to check that the customer can unencrypt the message.

I would have excepted that the encrypted file would be sent as an attachment which the customers could decrpyt.

There is some inconvience in getting things set up, which causes uptake to
be almost nil.

The issue is how to send the decryption key is s secure way.

Anhow good on the company using encryption, even though it was likely not
able to be used practically.



--- PyGate Linux v1.5.16
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-06-13, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

Daniel70 wrote:

Bob Henson wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

Phoned up my opticians to ask for a copy of my prescription, they
offered to email it (without asking any details about my email setup)
and what arrived was an encrypted attachment in .rpmsg format.

I found this page
https://www.shoviv.com/blog/what-is-an-rpmsg-file-and-how-do-i-open-it/

that explains it and how to deal with it. It can apparently only be
used by Outlook users or those with a Microsoft account

Could it be a program used between one optician and another optician to
transfer Customer Data??

Oh no, the optician is the dominant UK high-street chain, and they were
well aware I was a customer, rather than some other optician.

You have not responed to the question. Could encrypting be done for the transfer of files between opticans?

Even though there's nothing amazingly sensitive in the .pdf, I can sort
of understand it'd be good to encrypt it, except there's zero hope of it working without anyone actively setting up the encryption keys.

There are many encryption methods, which is part of the issue.

There is also the public/private keys system. You give you public key to the optican and they encode your file with the public key and on return to you
you can unencrypt the file with you private key.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.16
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-06-13, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

Paul wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

Even though there's nothing amazingly sensitive in the .pdf, I can sort of understand it'd be good to encrypt it,
except there's zero hope of it working without anyone actively setting up the encryption keys.

It would be a HIPPA requirement or a HIPPA-like requirement.

It's not a surprise the information is protected. The
surprise is the individual doing it, not knowing where
the information is going. Maybe the attachment could be
read by a registered practitioner ? But then that packaging
scheme is likely to only work for a single ("addressed") practitioner.

The file wrapped in the encryption is just a pdf, containing "standard" prescription info which I've always had on paper before, it's a legal requirement they give it to you.

<https://www.onlineopticiansuk.com/downloads/63977a8737a78359Specsavers_Glasses_Prescription_Example.jpg>

Yes, it has been paid for.

The info on that subscription is of no great value on its own, it is when it
is connected to a person that it comes more valuable.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.16
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)