On 28/02/15 16:25, Bjarni Runar Einarsson wrote: > E-mail is the *only* surviving decentralized free and open messaging > system with any clout today. Literally everything else in common use is > proprietary and centralized. We should all be deeply worried about this.
Well, I think it's a bit grim to think that therefore a successor to replace SMTP must surely be proprietary and centralized, and we should desperately clutch to our last straw, SMTP. Plus, half the e-mail is @google.com anyway. Proprietary, and centralized. It can still communicate with the rest of the world, but for most contacts, it doesn't need to. > Either way, even if this were a reasonable attitude, it doesn't in any > way diminish or excuse the fact that OpenPGP in all its glory is too > complicated for all but a handful of humans on the planet, most of whom > are probably on this mailing list. But a large part of that is due to the fact that SMTP was never built to accomodate any form of privacy or security.[1] Hence my comparison of SMTP being a sieve and privacy being a liquid to transport in that sieve. I for my part think it's unrealistic to keep using SMTP. As I said, you can keep the endpoint communication the same, but the core network needs to be designed with a different goal than SMTP was designed for, to wit, privacy and security. Peter. [1] At least where it concerns using OpenPGP for e-mail communication, which is what we are discussing. I think most users of Debian properly use GnuPG for the authentication of the package management, as an example. <offtopic> PS: By the way, I think you don't mean "literally" in the first quoted paragraph. Because then I need to read your words in a literal fashion, and verbal communication qualifies, in a literal sense, as a messaging system and is not proprietary or centralized. PPS: I like the word "literal". It's the one word in the dictionary that can by definition not be used in any other than its true sense :). It's comfortingly solid in that respect. -- I use the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) in combination with Enigmail. You can send me encrypted mail if you want some privacy. My key is available at <http://digitalbrains.com/2012/openpgp-key-peter> _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
