From: IN%"willer@carolian.com" 1-MAR-1996 18:50:23.84

I wrote:

...

You'd put something into the mail message itself that would tell it "don't encrypt this" and/or "don't sign this". Hmm... you'd need to put in messages to be signed and/or encrypted your passphrase, or have it gotten some other way... which doesn't look very safe.

Not very user-friendly either.

That depends on one's standards. I prefer text-based interfaces, and they are needed for many setups.

Usually the proxy would be on the same machine as the mail program (i.e. "your machine"). That would mean the "attack proxy" would have to be installed on the user's PC, and if someone has that kind of access to your machine, their secret keyring is vulnerable anyway.

Good point. This also argues against the passphrase into the mail being that much of a problem... with the massive exception of something going wrong with the mail proxy program so that it lets through the email, with the passphrase and possibly without any encryption. However, as has been pointed out on other aspects of this, one could have the passphrase entered once (in a special mail message with no valid To: address, for instance) per session. -Allen