From: Matt Blaze <mab@crypto.com>
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 93 15:13:08 PDT
To: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)
Subject: Re: ADMIN: proposed new policy on the mailing list
In-Reply-To: <9310232111.AA03150@ah.com>
Message-ID: <9310232156.AA11711@crypto.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>So far I have received six comments on the proposed sign-or-delay
>system, two in public, four in private.  All have been supportive of
>concept, but there have been specific technical issues with it.
>
Perhaps I wasn't clear.  The concept I support is encouraging signatures,
not some "sign or delay" scheme.  I think such schemes don't really help
encourage the use of signatures as much as they exclude people who
live in the wrong place or who don't have the right computers.  And a
"make it look signed or delay" scheme is even worse.  It just encourages
people to either give up on the list and go back to some place where the rules
make more sense or, even worse, waste their valuable time writing code that
produces funny "psuedosignatures" that serve no valuable purpose.

A much better way to spread cryptography is to work on developing new
and transparent mechanisms that help regular people securely integrate
signatures and encryption into their routine work without having to do
anything special or different. 

Trying to make life more inconvinient for people who already identify
themselves as "cypherpunks" but who for whatever reason don't have easy
access to the right tools seems not the way to do it.

-matt