On Sun, 19 Nov 1995, Derek Atkins wrote:
What do you mean by "technically superior"? What technical merits does MOSS have over PGP? It does have a better protocol with which to integrate it into mailers, but it is only a transmission protocol, not a security mechanism change. Worse, MOSS uses X.509, which requires a lot of overhead for certificates.
Ah, I was hoping that my statement would stir some controversy. I've learned that well thought out, carefully reasoned posts never get any response. I agree with you that the X.509 stuff is extra baggage in MOSS. Fortunately, the use of X.509 is optional. MOSS has two very large advantages over PGP: 1. It can operate without temp files. 2. It has no non-MIME variant. It will take forever for PGP/MIME to catch on. Thus, PGP will never really be a suitable candidate for my generic interface. Ah well.
On the other hand, the MIME-PGP protocol can provide the same integration functionality as MOSS and still allow the use of the simple PGP certification structure that already exists.
This is true. I hope it happens.
-derek
Raph