From: Greg Broiles <greg@ideath.goldenbear.com> Seems like one way to encourage the use of digital signatures is to start forging messages from people who don't ordinarily sign their messages. Necessity is the mother of invention, and all of that. How about a vacation-like program that automatically finds .sig blocks, stores them in a database and appends them at random to other posts? Eric, would you mind clarifying the purpose of the "sign-or-delay" rule? Last time this came up I assumed that it was to encourage folks who had 95% of the tools/initiative to start using crypto techniques on a day-to-day basis to get off their asses and do so; but other people seem to have different ideas about the purpose(s) of such a practice. Some of the reasons I've explained just recently. You are correct in the reason you state, also. Providing an incentive for those who are mostly there already will push many to act. I think that is a good thing. One benefit I did not anticipate is an outcome of the large number of people actually having gone through the process of setting up their own signing mechanisms. There are many more people now who have hands-on experience setting these crypto mechanisms for themselves and who consequently have a much better understanding of the implementation issues involved. For some problems action is ten times more effective than theorizing. I think it might be interesting to try the "sign-or-delay" rule on a part-time basis - perhaps weekends only, or never on weekends, or only during December, or whatever. This is a good suggestion. It makes the transition even more gradual. Eric