From: "Clay Olbon II" <Clay.Olbon@dynetics.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 10:44:06 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Why PGP isn't so ubiquitous (was NRC Session Hiss)
Message-ID: <ADD8D05B-64C27@193.239.225.200>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Mon, 3 Jun 1996, TT <apache@quux.apana.org.au> wrote:
>I think it is actually easy to use, although granted others may not; but 
>that people tend not to use it as a matter of course (and it is my belief 
>this is a desireable thing) due too the time taken to manually sign mail 
>or sign and encrypt. Lets face it the average user has trouble with a 
>dos command prompt and until there is a point and click emailer easily 
>available most people just won't try PGP for email. 

Most people I have encountered don't use PGP because of the initial
learning curve, more than the overall ease of use.  I work in a small
office that is separate from corporate HQ.  I have been trying for over a
year to convince people to use PGP for intra-office communication.  What I
have found is that for people within the office, it is fairly easy -
hands-on instruction works well.  Convincing folks at HQ has been a royal
pain however.  Most of the problem appears to be the "you mean I have to
learn new software?" variety.  Once I have coached someone over the
"knowledge hump" (often by phone), they tell me that using pgp is pretty
easy.  <disclaimer> We use Eudora Light for the Mac, YMMV </disclaimer>. 
The trick is convincing the user that the benefits associated with using
pgp are greater than the initial pain.  This is something I have only
accomplished with a few people.  

This educational process will continue to be the stumbling block for
widespread use until there is truly seamless encryption.  My fear is that
seamless encryption will be weak; witness the widespread use of 40bit
Netscape and the supposedly 40bit default behavior for S/MIME.  I think
that export controls are a driver towards weak defaults.

OK, that last part was a WA tangent from my "ease of using pgp" thread. 
It's late and I'm hungry.  Sue me.

	Later,
	Clay


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Clay Olbon II            | Clay.Olbon@dynetics.com
Systems Engineer         | ph: (810) 589-9930 fax 9934
Dynetics, Inc., Ste 302  | http://www.msen.com/~olbon/olbon.html
550 Stephenson Hwy       | PGP262 public key: on web page
Troy, MI 48083-1109      | pgp print: B97397AD50233C77523FD058BD1BB7C0
                     TANSTAAFL
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