We have GOT TO make things simpler

[Stefan Claas]

Robert J. Hansen wrote:

> > Not to rain your parade, but I follow the topic encryption since the mid
> > '80s and can say nowadays that GnuPG has failed to become an email
> > encryption product for the masses, which IIRC was the initial goal of Mr
> > Zimmermann's PGP back in the early ninetees.
> 
> It was not to be an email encryption tool.  It was to be a *file*
> encryption tool.
> 
> This is all that RFC1991 has to say about email:
> 
> "This radix-64 conversion ... is used to protect binary messages during
> transmission over non-binary channels, such as Internet Email."
> 
> That's it.  The only other mention of "email" in the entire document is
> to list email addresses for Derek Atkins, Bill Stallings, and Phil
> Zimmermann.

Well, I only remember learning about PGP back then in Usenet and everybody
used it for email communications or with Cypherpunk Remailers and seldom for
file encryption.

Anyways then one question arises ... if it's design goal was only meaned for
file encryption why then pub keys with email addresses, names and a WoT back
then plus shortly later key servers and the stories about Alice, Bob, Eve and
Mallory?

Wasn't for example Mallory not always interested in Alice's and Bob's email
communications?

<https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html>

I no longer have the original MIT booklet from Mr Zimmermann, to check in
there.

Regards
Stefan

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