On Thu, 24 Feb 1994, cort wrote:
When the file is executed, it will ask Ida a question that Fred has set up (with her in mind). This question will ideally be answerable only by Ida. If Ida answers correctly, her response will form a key to decrypt the message.
There might be a problem in that Ida would have to phrase the answer _exactly_ in the way that the sender has anticipated it would be phrased. For example, Fred might ask: "Where were we when we first kissed?" Ida may answer: "In the back of a dumpster truck" Although correct, Fred may have anticipaded: "In a dumpster truck" There has to be a provision for unambiguous wording. Even a question as simple as: "How old are you?" may be answered in more than one way "99" "ninety-nine" "99.5" "ninety-nine and one half" Knowing the answer yet having the program reject the "correct" answer time after time may frustrate your PGP-Self-Decrypt unaware user.
It would be a nice augmentation to the PGP package!
Why use PGP? As I understand it, the virtue of PGP lies in it's handling of public and secret keys. Any semi-secure algorythm may be used with a self-decrypt program.
Cort. -- cort@cc.purdue.edu
Sergey