Re: PGP and offline-readers

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

> 
> > PINE is very easy to use.  It will be available soon for personal
> > computers to use.  That part of the solution is almost there.
> 
> That part of the solution is already done.  There are already several very
> good POP/IMAP clients for Macs and PCs (Eudora, NuPOP, etc).  Why the
> fixation on a particular mail agent?  There is no way that you are going to
> get people to agree on a single MUA, therefore it seems that the comm
> channel is the beastie that one should focus on for encryption.

No fixation.  Just that IMAP is the best protocol for remote mail 
reading and pine is already available and supporting IMAP.  And
as a bonus it supports MIME.  This *is* something that BBS'ers dont
already have..  multi-media mail.

> 
> I hate to break it to you, but there already exists a protocol for off-line
> reading of mail and news over serial connections: QWK.  While a noble
> effort, I sincerely doubt that the BBSers and CI$ users are going to jump
> over to a completely new protocol for transport of information for off-line
> reading unless it offers them something that they do not already have, and
> IMAP/POP just doesn't do that.  If one were to be able to offer encrypted
> TCP/IP connectivity though, then you would be offering people the additional
> functionality of this comm channel (telnet, ftp, gopher/www, etc) to entice
> them to switch over.

You dont need encrypted TCP/IP!  A good mail reader supporting MIME
could handle encryption packages automatically!  MIME also supports
many other things that "they do not already have".

> 
> > (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).
> 
> Why not just get them to support IP?  Probably easier...  All they need is
> a slip/ppp driver on the host, then you can do the encryption over comm
> channel and avoid wasting time encrypting something that doesn't need to be
> encrypted.  Many BBS systems are beginning to wade through the shallow
> water of the Internet, if we had the ability to offer them modifications to
> provide encryption to thier IP connectivity while they are still new to the
> game it would be much easier to get them accostomed to the idea that such
> traffic should offer encryption; not that I think this will happen, but in
> an ideal world...

I dont think its easier.  I think something like SLIMAP (serial line
imap) would be the easist thing to implement.  IMAP runs over a network
stream and there is no reason it couldnt run over a serial line stream.
The code written for imapd already runs on stdin/stdout...  It wouldnt
be hard to port to run on a serial line connection.

> jim

I dont think offering IP to the masses is the right solution right
now.  Its not appropriate for the BBS world.  Getting people to use
remote mail clients is something that the masses could take to
alot easier.  I think this would be the prefered way to read mail
since the user interface could be made more friendly,  sorta
the 'prodigy thang'.  I dont think it matters what protocol is used
in the end but I think its something that should happen, and something
that we as cypherpunks have an interest in seeing happen.