[89818] in Cypherpunks
Re: PGP's SMTP enforcer and ISPs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Stewart)
Wed Nov 12 03:12:43 1997
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 10:38:11 -0800
To: phelix@vallnet.com, cypherpunks@algebra.com
From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
In-Reply-To: <346647dc.118322082@128.2.84.191>
Reply-To: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
At 04:47 AM 11/06/1997 GMT, phelix@vallnet.com wrote:
>Now that PGP has an SMTP enforcers, and that others will eventually follow
>with a S/MIME equivalent, we are literally an executive order away from an
>effective (if not 100% complete) ban on "inappropriate" encryption on email
>communications.
Nah - private speech isn't something the President has authority over.
(I'm assuming you mean that kind of executive order, as opposed to
"the folks who run my ISP cut off port 25 by fiat and can cut off crypto
too".)
Besides, about all the PGP SMTP enforcer does is look for
-----BEGIN PGP ENCRYPTED STUFF-----
or the equivalent binary formats, which is easy for anybody to write a
filter for,
but very tough to scale the average sendmail daemon to look for,
and it's easy enough to steganize your way around (Jon Callas recommends
using -----BEGIN ZZZ ENCRYPTED STUFF----- to avoid the PGP SMTP filters :-)
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
