On Mon, 3 Jun 1996, TT <apache@quux.apana.org.au> wrote:
I think it is actually easy to use, although granted others may not; but that people tend not to use it as a matter of course (and it is my belief this is a desireable thing) due too the time taken to manually sign mail or sign and encrypt. Lets face it the average user has trouble with a dos command prompt and until there is a point and click emailer easily available most people just won't try PGP for email.
Most people I have encountered don't use PGP because of the initial learning curve, more than the overall ease of use. I work in a small office that is separate from corporate HQ. I have been trying for over a year to convince people to use PGP for intra-office communication. What I have found is that for people within the office, it is fairly easy - hands-on instruction works well. Convincing folks at HQ has been a royal pain however. Most of the problem appears to be the "you mean I have to learn new software?" variety. Once I have coached someone over the "knowledge hump" (often by phone), they tell me that using pgp is pretty easy. <disclaimer> We use Eudora Light for the Mac, YMMV </disclaimer>. The trick is convincing the user that the benefits associated with using pgp are greater than the initial pain. This is something I have only accomplished with a few people. This educational process will continue to be the stumbling block for widespread use until there is truly seamless encryption. My fear is that seamless encryption will be weak; witness the widespread use of 40bit Netscape and the supposedly 40bit default behavior for S/MIME. I think that export controls are a driver towards weak defaults. OK, that last part was a WA tangent from my "ease of using pgp" thread. It's late and I'm hungry. Sue me. Later, Clay --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clay Olbon II | Clay.Olbon@dynetics.com Systems Engineer | ph: (810) 589-9930 fax 9934 Dynetics, Inc., Ste 302 | http://www.msen.com/~olbon/olbon.html 550 Stephenson Hwy | PGP262 public key: on web page Troy, MI 48083-1109 | pgp print: B97397AD50233C77523FD058BD1BB7C0 TANSTAAFL ---------------------------------------------------------------------------