Re: PGPfone contact server

[stewarts@ix.netcom.com]

[From a discussion on pgp-fone@rivertown.net]
>>> Is there any kind of server method people on this list use to meet up on
>>>PGP fone???
>>IMHO... Because PGPfone's main goal is to provide security and maybe
>>some anonymity, would it make [no?] sense to have a feature like this.

I can think of a few useful variants on this kind of service

1) Incoming-Call-Notifier daemon - faster than email, smaller than pgpfone.
(PGPfone may not have a problem with this, but Netscape CoolTalk has a
watchdog daemon that hangs out waiting for calls.  Don't know if it barks,
but it's got to be smaller than NS+CT.  Firewalls generally kill these,
though...

2) Chat-line with switch to voice - an IRC channel would do fine, and be
easy to set one up, for people who want to meet to play with the technology;
for people who want to cut out to PGPfone from other IRC groups, you don't
even need that, though distributing an IRC client with a "PGPfone" button
might be a good marketing technique.  Name the IRC channel "pgpfone"...

CU-SeeMe uses this approach - reflectors are often busy or way slow,
and the available public-access reflectors change pretty often,
and it's much easier to find people or find interesting reflectors
using the IRC channel than polling for busy-signals.  CU-SeeMe supports
conversations through reflectors as well as direct-connection,
and doing a PGPfone-like DC mode might be fun as well.

3) Finding specific people who don't have predictable IP addresses -
IRC can also do this, or email, but it wouldn't be hard to build a
web form widget that lets you plug in your name/handle and 
scarfs up your current IP address or lets you enter it.
A "specific person" could be an alias, of course.

4) A secure n-person conference bridge could be good also,
though it's much more difficult to make something like that work,
especially if you use a crypto mode that dislikes dropped packets.

#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk
#     (If this is posted to cypherpunks, I'm currently lurking from fcpunx,
#     so please Cc: me on replies.  Thanks.)