signing messages

[Eric Hughes]

   From: Greg Broiles <greg at ideath.goldenbear.com>

   Seems like one way to encourage the use of digital signatures is to
   start forging messages from people who don't ordinarily sign their
   messages. Necessity is the mother of invention, and all of that.

How about a vacation-like program that automatically finds .sig
blocks, stores them in a database and appends them at random to other
posts?

   Eric, would you mind clarifying the purpose of the "sign-or-delay"
   rule? Last time this came up I assumed that it was to encourage 
   folks who had 95% of the tools/initiative to start using crypto 
   techniques on a day-to-day basis to get off their asses and do so;
   but other people seem to have different ideas about the purpose(s)
   of such a practice. 

Some of the reasons I've explained just recently.

You are correct in the reason you state, also.  Providing an incentive
for those who are mostly there already will push many to act.  I think
that is a good thing.

One benefit I did not anticipate is an outcome of the large number of
people actually having gone through the process of setting up their
own signing mechanisms.  There are many more people now who have
hands-on experience setting these crypto mechanisms for themselves and
who consequently have a much better understanding of the
implementation issues involved.  For some problems action is ten times
more effective than theorizing.

   I think it might be interesting to try the "sign-or-delay" rule on
   a part-time basis - perhaps weekends only, or never on weekends, or
   only during December, or whatever.

This is a good suggestion.  It makes the transition even more gradual.

Eric