Re: PGP and offline-readers

[Timothy Newsham <newsham@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu>]

> 
> According to Timothy Newsham:
> >   I think a good idea for offline readers would be to build ontop of
> > currently implemented protocols.  One protocol worth mentioning is
> 
> This is fine if you are using a *nix machine.  But if you are trying 
> to enforce
> your privacy over CI$ or genie or a bbs, well, you can't rely on one common
> protocol.  This is why I advocate communications program scripts.

We need to get people to use common protocols!  
CI$ will respond to what its users want.
If we got alot of BBS's to use IMAP then the users would
want CI$ to use the same.
If we made IMAP easy to use and helped BBS authors
get IMAP code running in their systems then BBS users would
use it

PINE is very easy to use.  It will be available soon for personal
computers to use.  That part of the solution is almost there.
How do we get BBS's to use IMAP?  they could support IMAP in
a similar way that they support Zmodem.  What needs to be done
is to write some code that does IMAPD functions that could easily
be incorporated into a BBS program, and figure out a way for
end users to run PINE from their favorite bbs program.
(and get PINE people to allow for a serial-line connection *or*
write a false-packet driver that just strips off TCP/IP headers
sends the data over the line and sends back ACK's to the TCP/IP
process).
                              Tim