Easy PGP use from the Mac

[doug@OpenMind.com (Doug Cutrell)]

For all those who have been complaining about the inconvenience of using
PGP to sign their messages, decrypt received messages, etc., and who
primarily use a Macintosh for their private mail reading...

I use a set-up which is as simple as:

1) Type a message into a Eudora window

2) Double click on a desktop icon

3) Wait about 15 seconds, and the message in the window is replaced with a
signed and/or encrypted version of the original message.  (Plus typing in a
recipient into dialog box for encryption, and entering a passphrase for
signing -- or the passphrase can be "saved").

Decrypting and signature verification is almost as easy... but the
decrypted text appears in a text editor window instead of a new Eudora
window.  No big deal.  All disk based plaintext files can be automatically
wiped during this process.

All you need is:

1) Commercial Eudora for the Mac (costs about $50)

2) Applescript 1.1 (buy it now, or provided with System 7.5, due out soon)

3) MacPGP 2.6ui

4) Some carefully written scripts for combining the above three components.

I found it necessary to tweak the scripts that someone else had written to
do all of the above, but now it's all working great.  The main disadvantage
that I can see is that MacPGP 2.6ui is required to make this work (the
"USA-domestic" MacPGP 2.6 does not have the required scripting support).
But since you can configure 2.6ui to pretend to the outside world that it
is regular 2.6, this doesn't seem like much of a problem for most people.

By the way, Eudora comes with Unix-mail program interface scripts that
enable many people to use it in combination with a terminal Unix account
(such as a standard Netcom account).

I'll be happy to provide more details/help on request, or to send a copy of
my slightly modifed scripts.  The desktop icons I alluded to in the
beginning are just aliases to the scripts.

Doug

___________________________________________________________________
Doug Cutrell                    General Partner
doug@OpenMind.com               Open Mind, Santa Cruz
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