From: snark!esr@gvls1.VFL.Paramax.COM (Eric S. Raymond)
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 08:03:19 PDT
To: snark!cypherpunks
Subject: Mailer hooks for PGP
Message-ID: <m0oW5Bn-000BfRC@snark.uucp>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


I've now uploaded and made PGP.  It looks mondo cool, but also kind of a
pain to use because the existing interface requires one to perform encryption
and decryption manually.

I'm considering writing patches for Elm 2.4 that would allow it to (a)
check your public ring and automatically sign/encode outgoing mail to
eligible users, and (b) automatically decode incoming mail.

Elm is a very popular mailer.  If I could get these patches into the
distribution, the hassle barrier to widespread use of PGP would drop
significantly.  And the prospects for that are good; I'm friendly with
the Elm development group moderator.  Also, there's precedent for Elm
to delegate message decoding --- it has MIME hooks that shell out to
metamail.

(That brings up another point.  Has anyone worked on getting armored
PGP registered as an official MIME encoding type?  Getting pgp support
into metamail would be a massive win --- probably better than hooks in
Elm itself.  If no one else is working this angle, I'd be willing to
get in touch with Nathaniel Borenstein and use whatever zorch I have
with him to make it happen.)

Now, before I begin hacking.  Has anything like this been done before?
Are there any known design problems or pitfalls in integration with a
mailer such as Elm?  And, finally, if prz is listening, would you be
willing to accept minor hacks for this purpose such as the addition of
a new pgp interface mode tailored for use from mailers?
-- 
						>>eric>>