Re: McCoy is Right! New Mail Format to Start Now.

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

I want to add something to what I just sent out, something of direct
relevance for PGP efforts:

> I see two "stable attractors" for text/graphics/multimedia/etc. sent
> over the Net:
> 
> 1. Straight text, ASCII, 80 column format. All systems can handle
> this, all mailers and newsreaders can handle it, it's what the Usenet
> is essentially based upon, and it gets the job done. It meets the
> needs of 95% of us for 95% of our needs.
> 
> 2. The Web, for graphics, images, etc. This will be the next main
> stable attractor, deployed on many platforms. (I'm assuming the debate
> here about Netscape standards does not imply much of a fragmentation,
> that Mosaic, Netscape, MacWeb, etc., will all basically be able to
> display Web pages in much the same way.)

And these two attractors are where the efforts on encryption have the
biggest pay-offs. We already know that PGP is "text"-oriented, and
that PGP messages can be read on a variety of machines, from terminal
to DOS to Macs to Suns, etc. PGP is well-suited to a straight text
world, as it makes no assumptions about non-ASCII capabilitites.
(Using the ASCII-armor mode that most of us use.)

It is when assumptions are made by programs, think of "Lotus Notes" or
"DECMail," that interoperability is lost. 

The Lesson: Beware of making any assumptions about MIME sorts of
extensions to use with PGP, as many people will--for whatever
reasons--not be able or willing to process MIME mail.

The Web is where I think a lot of future efforts on integrating PGP in
should happen. (I'm speaking of when the Web is used to send e-mail,
which I hear is being worked on by many groups; clearly a lot of
Netscape/Mosaic/etc. users expect to use these products as their main
interface to the Net, and not have to have separate mail programs.)

This is where I would put my money.

--Tim May


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