From: jrochkin@cs.oberlin.edu (Jonathan Rochkind)
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 94 08:56:17 PST
To: Andrew Lowenstern <roy@cybrspc.mn.org
Subject: Re: Mandatory sig workaround
Message-ID: <ab03afd302021004d396@[132.162.201.201]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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At 11:20 AM 12/01/94, Andrew Lowenstern wrote:
>Roy Silvernail writes:
>>  Tim, just for fun, what tools would need to appear to make it
>>  possible for you to sign your traffic?  Maybe a description will
>>  inspire some of the Macheads out there to get hacking.  (the astute
>>  reader will note that I'm not suggesting new tools to the erstwhile
>>  Mr. May, as has been done so often in the past)
>
>Perhaps I'm wrong, but doesn't MacPGP allow you to sign things on the
>clipboard?  Are there any MacPGP users out there?  If this is true (and I
>think it is), then I don't see what's holding Tim back...  Compose message,

>select all, cut, sign, paste, deliver...

Not only does MacPGP allow you to sign the clipboard, but there are
applescripts available so you can sign the clipboard without even switching to
MacPGP and doing it manually. Just choose the script from a pulldown menu, and
everything happens automatically (you have to type in your passphrase, of
course).
Additionally, there are scripts for Eudora such that you dont' even need to
mess with the clipboard. You choose one script from a menu, click on the
"sign" button, and your outgoing mail is signed. It would be trivial to
convert the script to sign automatically instead of asking you whether you
want to sign, encrypt or both.

For whatever reasons, the tools that are there aren't good enough for Tim.
Which is fine, I admit they still aren't perfect, and Tim, from what I
understand, has a complicated situation wherein mac tools aren't good enough,
he needs unix tools too.  Personally, I've found unix and mac tools that are
easy enough for me to use, but maybe I'm just a gearhead. Eventually easy-to-
use-by-Tim's-standards tools will come around, and he'll use them. Or they'll
never come around, and he won't.

But I think many of his posts are really misleading in implying that there
aren't any relatively easy-to-use tools out there. Maybe they're not easy
enough for Tim (and I'm not being at all disparaging here. I am perfectly
willing to admit that there is quite a bit of room for improvement with the
existing tools), but I think the existing tools are orders of magnitude better
then what existed, say, 8 months ago.  I use premail on the unix, and the
formentioned applescripts on my mac, and I am finally using PGP relatively
reguarly, whereas 8 months ago the tools just weren't available that were
simple enough for me to use.

Again, I don't mean to be knocking Tim here.  If the tools still aren't easy
enough to install/use for Tim, I respect that. I just don't want people to get
the wrong idea, and think that there aren't _any_ tools out there, or that the
cypherpunks haven't been doing anything and there hasn't been any improvement
in tools. I see incredible improvement in ease-of-use of available tools in
the past 8 months to a year.

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