[107144] in Cypherpunks
two beers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anonymous)
Sun Jan 3 16:54:03 1999
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 22:28:19 +0100
From: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Reply-To: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
This extended weekend I turned three people on to PGP.
Vers 5.5 from pgpi.com, for windows. Everyone seems
to have a wintel box at home these days. (Albeit, there is a Mac
version.) I am in the process of sending them my key, etc
to fully exercise the tool with them.
NB: it confuses newbies to find all the default keys pre-installed
in PGPkeys. "Why are they there?" Me: "Well, they built it,
maybe for testing. Lets delete them, you don't know these people."
NB: it would have been smarter to have brought along my public
key on a floppy for instant testing.
It takes about two beers to install, demo the PGP Keys
tool, create a key, explain about passphrase-encrypted
actual secret keys, secure wiping, and encrypting selected
text (using using the toolbar icon) in email to onesself.
In motivating the purpose of the tool, you can nowadays
usually slip in some comments about Monica's lack
of INFOSECLUE and how one would keep keys and downloaded files
on removable media, etc. in an ecafe situation. Nice to have
everyday examples like that. Kinda like the OJ trial (DNA) made it
easier for the park service to explain what the hell commercial
micro biologists were doing scooping sludge from the fumaroles..
but I digress.
You can even get into discussions of introducers, key-to-meat association
authentication, duress passwords, stego, etc. depending on their interest.
These are not cryptographers, not international ferret traffickers, or any
such. Just moderately intelligent non-programming folks who knew how to
send email already.
Actual time may have been more than 2 beers but I was talking.
Much easier to explain and to learn with someone live demo'ing.
With friends its entertaining for a bit. I could see demoing
to schoolchildren.
The folks responsible should be proud of the ease with which this
tech can be deployed. Extremely proud.
Some of these people know each other, so (as with any standard,
e.g., english, wintel, dollars, 60 hz 110 V, POTS, rail gauges,
the more who use it the more useful it is) perhaps it won't
collect virtual dust (rust?) like a set of unused weights in the garage.
Turn on. Telnet in. Drop packets.
Leery
