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Re: Software infrastructure
> Subject: Software infrastructure
...other good stuff deleted...I read mail at 2400B.
> The result would be that when you receive an encrypted message, you
> just list it out to your terminal and then, automatically, PGP fires up
> and asks you for your pass phrase (unless you SET it ahead of time in
> the PC's environment). It then displays the message for you.
>
> This simple model has several deficiencies. When I log into a Unix system,
> or Compuserve, or Portal's "Online" service, and read my mail, it is often
> shown to me a page at a time. This is so that I can read long messages
> more easily. Then after each message I can delete it, save it, reply to
> it, etc. If I do reply or if I want to create a new message it will drop
> me into a text editor to compose the message.
>
> The result is that the mail program you are running on the host computer
> may do some munging on the PGP message, like inserting "Press RETURN for
> next page" or perhaps some terminal control characters. These would have
> to be filtered out before PGP could run on the file, or you would have to
> be able to suppress them when you read this message.
If we are talking about an off-line reader, this is solved by a trivial filter
routine. If you want to do this on-line, well it might take time.
> Also, assuming we could capture the message and run PGP on it automatically,
> the resulting decrypted message will have to be saved and given a file
> name. Then if the user wants to reply to it he is going to have to leave
> his terminal and run an editor. (At least, that's what I have to do now.)
Why save the plaintext? I keep it in cyphertext and decrypt it on demand. And
when I want to reply, then I decrypt it, quote it and have the user edit that
file, which will presumably be re-encrypted.
> Plus, this only deals with the message-receiving problem, not the sending
> problem.
Actually, these are the same problems in different clothes.
>
> I'm not sure what the solution is. Maybe the PC program needs to be more
> than a terminal program, and become more of a whole mail-processing
> program. Maybe you should just download your mail file en masse from the
> host to your PC, pre-process it to replace (in place) the incoming encrypted
> messages with plaintext versions (annotated to show validated signatures),
> then run a PC program which will display one message at a time, let you
> reply, save, etc. This way the decryptions are done before you even look
> at the mail file and incoming encrypted mail is treated on a first class
> basis (the same as other mail).
>
> Then for outgoing mail you'd like to be able to drop into a user-defined
> editor which is run with a command line causing his file to be saved to
> some temp file name. Then we can automatically encrypt the outgoing mail
> for him based on the destination, add a remailer chain if requested, etc.
> Then he gives a command and all his replies and new mail are uploaded and
> sent.
These last 2 paragraphs describe almost exactly what my scripts do!
> This would be pretty tough to do since there are so many different ways
> of sending and receiving mail on host computers. This would again have
> to be a customizable part of the program, where we could provide modules
> to deal with the common cases of Unix running "mail", elm, mh, etc., and
> perhaps some of the commercial services. BBS's would ideally be handled
> as well. Hackers could contribute scripts for supporting their favorite
> mail system.
I find that I need to be a bit more modular with my scripts so that I can call
a different module depending on which type of system I'm on...Working on it at
this moment.
+-----------------------+-----------------------------+---------+
| J. Michael Diehl ;-) | I thought I was wrong once. | PGP KEY |
| [email protected] | But, I was mistaken. |available|
| [email protected] | | Ask Me! |
| (505) 299-2282 +-----------------------------+---------+
| |
+------"I'm just looking for the opportunity to be -------------+
| Politically Incorrect!" <Me> |
+-----If codes are outlawed, only criminals wil have codes.-----+
+----Is Big Brother in your phone? If you don't know, ask me---+