From: qwerty@netcom.com (Xenon)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 94 00:16:34 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: What's a "real encryptor"?
Message-ID: <199402080814.AAA17429@mail.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Typo correction from first post:

If PGP outputted such a hard-to-distinguish-from-random data format, it
opens up many different possibilities for sending your messages. Ideally, no
one would be able to tell if it was an encrypted message except by
successfully decrypting it. As it is now, such schemes have to rely on
"encrypting" an already encrypted PGP message to hide the fact that it IS a
PGP message! Many of us just want to be left alone and are tired of having
our files tagged as BEING encrypted. Personally, I suggest using PGP as a
Clipboard utility so I can cut a message out, encrypt it, paste it back in
and save it as a word processor file which I then Macintosh BinHex encode
as text, and e-mail off. Now I'm just sending a BinHexed word processor
file, just like thousands of other Macintosh e-mailers out there every day!
This isn't good enough since it is so easy to reverse, AND can be automated.
Honestly, I'm not doing this much yet with distant friends, but then there
are only two of them ;-), and they are still struggling with just e-mail.
PGP is still a program only used by those why really need it. It may remain
that way, so for those people, having a random data block output would mean 
they wont set off alarms and catch the attention of the government, just for
sending a love letter to their mistress ;-). It would also render the Clipper
issue moot.

-=Xenon, who never could type, and breaks things a lot still=-