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Re: Why PGP isn't so ubiquitous (was NRC Session Hiss)
On Mon, 3 Jun 1996, TT <[email protected]> wrote:
>I think it is actually easy to use, although granted others may not; but
>that people tend not to use it as a matter of course (and it is my belief
>this is a desireable thing) due too the time taken to manually sign mail
>or sign and encrypt. Lets face it the average user has trouble with a
>dos command prompt and until there is a point and click emailer easily
>available most people just won't try PGP for email.
Most people I have encountered don't use PGP because of the initial
learning curve, more than the overall ease of use. I work in a small
office that is separate from corporate HQ. I have been trying for over a
year to convince people to use PGP for intra-office communication. What I
have found is that for people within the office, it is fairly easy -
hands-on instruction works well. Convincing folks at HQ has been a royal
pain however. Most of the problem appears to be the "you mean I have to
learn new software?" variety. Once I have coached someone over the
"knowledge hump" (often by phone), they tell me that using pgp is pretty
easy. <disclaimer> We use Eudora Light for the Mac, YMMV </disclaimer>.
The trick is convincing the user that the benefits associated with using
pgp are greater than the initial pain. This is something I have only
accomplished with a few people.
This educational process will continue to be the stumbling block for
widespread use until there is truly seamless encryption. My fear is that
seamless encryption will be weak; witness the widespread use of 40bit
Netscape and the supposedly 40bit default behavior for S/MIME. I think
that export controls are a driver towards weak defaults.
OK, that last part was a WA tangent from my "ease of using pgp" thread.
It's late and I'm hungry. Sue me.
Later,
Clay
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Clay Olbon II | [email protected]
Systems Engineer | ph: (810) 589-9930 fax 9934
Dynetics, Inc., Ste 302 | http://www.msen.com/~olbon/olbon.html
550 Stephenson Hwy | PGP262 public key: on web page
Troy, MI 48083-1109 | pgp print: B97397AD50233C77523FD058BD1BB7C0
TANSTAAFL
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