Re: Zimmermann/NSA debate postponed

[Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com>]

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    From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@netcom.com>
    Date: Tue, 23 Aug 1994 17:48:30 -0700 (PDT)
    
    Huh? Phil almost _never_ signs his messages . . .

It may very well be that he only signs messages to `public' forums or
that he only signs things when he considers the message to be more
important than normal, however, the majority of the messages that he
has sent out to cypherpunks, alt.security.pgp, etc. in, say, the last
half a year or so, have been signed.  On the other hand, the one other
message that I could come up with that wasn't signed was also about
the debate.

    . . . and has talked about how difficult it is to go through the
    rigamarole of signing, authenticating, etc.

Hmmmm.  FWIW, it typically requires two keystrokes for me to do any of
the half dozen PGP operations that I do most often.  I've heard of at
least three other emacs-based interfaces for simplifying PGP
interaction and there seem to be quite a few other `helper' packages
around for other email environments.

    (I sympathize with him, and I intensely dislike getting PGP-encrypted
    messages, decrypting them, only to find a banal message that wasn't
    worth the effort.)

 Perhaps you think your E-mail is legitimate enough that encryption is
 unwarranted.  If you really are a law-abiding citizen with nothing to
 hide, then why don't you always send your paper mail on postcards? 
 Why not submit to drug testing on demand?  Why require a warrant for
 police searches of your house?  Are you trying to hide something? 
 You must be a subversive or a drug dealer if you hide your mail
 inside envelopes.  Or maybe a paranoid nut.  Do law-abiding citizens
 have any need to encrypt their E-mail?

Ok, ok, so the above paragraph is blatant plagiarism (it's from
pgpdoc1 for anyone who didn't recognize it).  I encrypt most
point-to-point communications with other PGP users on principle,
regardless of the content.  In any case, I find it quite disappointing
to hear that one of the cypherpunks founders frowns on people actually
using strong crypto on a routine basis.  Sigh...

			Rick

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