[dfabulich]

Nobody said "you can't check the MDC." Everybody said "you have to check GPG's error code."

And I think it's clear to everybody (in this thread) that GPG's approach is a dangerous blame-the-user approach to API design, even granting that this dangerous approach offers optimum performance (especially relative to adding an entire second pass).

[tptacek]

There's no difference. You're talking about the program, I'm talking about the mechanism. Either way:

* GPG should never release unauthenticated plaintext to callers. The exit code is a red herring.

* Nothing about "pipes" prevents them from squelching unauthenticated plaintext.