From: Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 16:28:21 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: FTP SW to support PGP in OnNet
Message-ID: <Pine.GUL.3.94.960717153112.29629C-100000@Networking.Stanford.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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Seems the demise of PGP in favor of S/MIME has been somewhat exaggerated.
Blurb in this week's InfoWorld led me to
http://www.ftp.com/mkt_info/onnet32/tr-pgp.htm

It would be a mistake, though, to say that they have a clue:

  E-mail compatibility

     Most e-mail systems can send and receive only plain text (technically,
     7-bit ASCII characters). So PGP converts the encrypted information
     (which is 8-bit) into plain ASCII text using the radix-64 algorithm.

     This has a side effect that enhances security even when you don't use
     encryption. If you merely add authentication to the message, radix-64
     still converts the whole message using its own algorithm. The resulting
     message -- even though it's not securely encrypted -- looks garbled to
     the casual snoop.

D'Oh!

- -rich
 censor the internet! http://www.stanford.edu/~llurch/potw2/
 boycott fadetoblack! http://www.fadetoblack.com/prquest.htm

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