[7751] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: reflecting on PGP, keyservers, and the Web of Trust
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jaap-Henk Hoepman)
Tue Sep 5 19:21:38 2000
To: cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: Russell Nelson's message of "Fri, 1 Sep 2000 23:14:06 -0400 (EDT)"
From: Jaap-Henk Hoepman <hoepman@cs.utwente.nl>
Date: 04 Sep 2000 08:45:56 +0200
Message-ID: <kp7l8sejtn.fsf@utip202.cs.utwente.nl>
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On Fri, 1 Sep 2000 23:14:06 -0400 (EDT) Russell Nelson <nelson@crynwr.com> writes:
> Ed Gerck writes:
> > Even though the web-of-trust seems to be a pretty good part of PGP,
> > IMO it is actually it's Achilles heel.
>
> Nope. Usability is its Achilles heel. PGP needs to be wrapped in
> something, and yet it's not really designed to be wrapped. Even if it
> were, PGP, Inc. changed the interface! Doh! And then there's the
> whole encryption method problem.
What's wrong with the PGP wrappers for Outlook or Eudora? They looked quite
usable and user friendly to me - as far as any secure email product could ever
be completely be user friendly... The user has to do more stuff than usual, and
has to have some understanding of what is going on in order to judge whether
his/her security requirements have been met.
Jaap-Henk
--
Jaap-Henk Hoepman | Come sail your ships around me
Dept. of Computer Science | And burn these bridges down
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