Thomas Grant Edwards Writes:
PGP has made me more crypto aware, but at this point neither I nor most of the crypto aware people I personally know feel there is a need to either encrypt or sign messages on a regular basis.
It is my own personal opinion that in order for crypto to truly become mainframe, the software manufacturers of internet connectivity packages must integrate crypto into the applications. Look at the past threads here on Cypherpunks..."How do I write a script to put PGP into ELM?" "PGP DLL modularity" etc. In order to bring crypto to the masses, we have got to convince people that it is necessary. We also must make it "second nature". It sure is nice to have a menu option or a toolbar button that will encrypt plaintext automatically. Key management and some of the "high tech" (I know, for us it's nothing, but for my dad who just bought a computer and doesn't understand the difference between click, double click, and drag, crypto is a really high tech thing just in itself.) things of crypto should not be directly handled by the user. (Optional of course. On a privacy level, the user should have full control. But give the user a break...if the software is secure..as such...so is the user's privacy.) You will notice that this message is not signed. That's because in order to sign it, I would need to save my message, hop out to a DOS box, PGP encrypt it, hop back to my mail program and insert the encrypted mail as a text file. That's enough to discourage the average user. This is pretty much what Tim May was talking about when he discussed why he doesn't sign his messages. It's not that he couldn't... it's just not practical for him. It's not really practical for me either, but I do it when I feel it's necessary. The only way to make crypto practical is to basicalloy hide the technical side from the user and make it easy. That's my two cents.
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