From: tcmay@sensemedia.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 95 19:29:27 PDT
To: Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@nsb.fv.com>
Subject: "Only on the Cypherpunks list..."
Message-ID: <ac3af6120f021004a990@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 10:00 PM 7/25/95, Nathaniel Borenstein wrote:

>Well, only on the cypherpunks list would you be likely to find general
>agreement that PGP'ed credit card numbers are "easier" than First
>Virtual.  Many thousands of extremely naive net citizens are now happy
>FV customers, and I seriously doubt that most of them could master PGP
>without a full-day tutorial.  (We're not talking about rocket scientists
>here, folks.)

A lot of truth here...sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good.

After all, only on the Cypherpunks list would you be likely to find general
agreement that setting up a separate Intel box running Linux so one can
create a suitable mail client is the preferred way to do secure e-mail?

(Smileys for the :=)-impaired...I have nothing against Linux, and even
browsed the new O'Reilly book recently. But I'm _still_ glad I'm "just a
Mac user.")

I have no idea what First Virtual's current or future business plans are,
but I do expect more solid encryption, a la PGP or "real" RSA (licensed),
will be coming soon. I assume FV is planning for this likely development.

--Tim May

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