Mutt/GnuPG doc initial release

[Mark H. Wood]

On Fri, 28 Sep 2001, Horacio wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 12:00:40AM +0200, Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> > On Mittwoch, 26. September 2001 15:38, Horacio wrote:
> > > That´s your saying, and yet people who think and act like
> > > you do slow down my reading of mail at mailing lists by
> > > forcing the opening of a process for no useful reason.
> >
> > Maybe you shouldn't be using this MTA if it slows down your
> > reading so much just because of signed messages.
>
> Ok, while comparisons are not always fair, sometimes can be
> used as a means to make someone understanding.  Let´s try
> this simple one:
>
> A car horn is meant to be used for warning against and
> accident.  Yet, many people make an abusive use of it.  I
> hate that.  But, does it mean that I should cover my ears to
> avoid hearing it?  Being able to hearing the horn when a car
> is bumping into me is far more important.
>
> I know that I´m left no choice but to put up with it, but at
> least I have the right to complain about some people´s bad
> mannered and uncivilized behaviour.  Obviously, neither you
> nor Owen will think it is uncivilized (ok, now I´m back to
> signatures here), since you seem to enjoy it.  Perhaps
> uncivilized is a word fit for the example, but not for the
> abuse of digital signatures... let´s just say bad mannered
> and selfish.

Although you have no other alternatives w.r.t. car horns, you do have
another alternative w.r.t. signatures:  it sounds like what you really
need is an MUA which can be set to check only signatures which interest
you and ignore others.  If there is no such MUA, you can add this feature
yourself (assuming you don't favor some closed-source abomination :-).

I believe that someone has already mentioned a way to make one MUA
sensitive to the distinction between list and private mail, requiring that
you have your listmail delivered to alternate folders.  But it shouldn't
be too hard to also make an MUA check the sender's address against a list
of senders whose signatures you are willing to endure.

That way others may choose to sign *and* you may choose not to care about,
or perhaps even see, the signature.  It seems to me that in this way
everybody wins.

Further discussion of this not-GPG-specific topic should probably take
place elsewhere.

-- 
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer   mwood@IUPUI.Edu
Make a good day.