PGP/MIME use (was Re: META)

[Jerry]

On Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:40:08 -0500
Robert J. Hansen articulated:

> This comes fairly close to my own practices, with one significant
> exception: since it's almost impossible for me to know whether all the
> MUAs used on a mailing list support PGP/MIME, I feel it's better for
> mailing list traffic to be inline.

I take the opposite approach. Due to the way "inline" messes up the
format of a message, and obviously renders the "sig-delimiter" useless,
I prefer to use "PGP/MIME". Plus, so many morons, I could use
"intellectually challenged" if you prefer, fail to trim a replied to
messaged; ie, they leave all of the superfluous "inline" garbage plus
other parts of the replied to message intact rather than strip it out,
just adds to the annoyance factor.

Supporting the "inline" method is like supporting a grown child. If you
keep supporting him/her, they will never leave home. Stop supporting
them and they will leave. The same is true for "inline" PGP. If support
for it were to cease, it would also.

> Of course, I really feel it's better for mailing list traffic to not
> be signed at all, since usually all it gives us is a false sense of
> security.  A signature from an unvalidated key belonging to an unknown
> person whom we don't know from Adam doesn't mean much, if anything at
> all.

I totally agree. I have never seen or heard any logical excuse for the
signing of list traffic. What am I going to do, attempt to use the
identity of another poster? What purpose would that serve anyway? As
you so eloquently pointed out, "A signature from an unvalidated
key belonging to an unknown person whom we don't know from Adam doesn't
mean much, if anything at all."

By the way, "unvalidated" is probably not a word; at least accord to
Merriam Webster <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unvalidated>.

-- 
Jerry ♔

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