Re: quetion about Multi-user systems

[Pierre Uszynski <pierre@shell.portal.com>]

> On Wed, 23 Feb 1994, Eric Johnson wrote:
> 
> 	[...] So perhaps I could just download my
> 	inbox, but then sending the mail messages may be
> 	difficult, since their is no place I can just send them.
> 	[...]
> 	I figure yo could just upload a file with all of your
> 	replies and new mail, and then have a script mail each of
> 	those letters.  That way my secret key stay on my home
> 	system, very safe, and I can use emacs to answer read and
> 	encrypt all my mail with ease.

Using kermit & Co, and then a script to transfer files composed
and signed at home for mailing from your internet account is
too tedious.

But I believe you mentioned you are using Linux on your PC. Sooo,
here are two solutions that should work in any real (non-Microsoft)
window system:

1) Compose and sign each message on the PC. Then, while on-line
with the remote computer, cut and paste the already-signed
message directly into the remote mail line editor. (Cutting and
pasting in such a way sometimes gets you in trouble with
various buffering bugs, but you'll quickly figure out how
much text you can paste at a time. Once a piece of text is
signed, make sure you don't introduce more spaces, blank lines
and such !) Once you have cut-and-paste running, it should not
matter on which system you read your mail, on which one you compose
new messages, or on which one you sign. Cutting and pasting very
long messages will still be a pain.

2) Use a mud client (or similar) instead of kermit to connect
to the remote system. Sending mail is then done by using the
usual commands to get the remote system into the mailer line
editor and then using a client macro of some sort to sign,
transfer and send a message prepared locally. This solution
will require some programming (very little on Linux, maybe quite
a bit on a MacIntosh).

Pierre Uszynski
pierre@shell.portal.com