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 -- box: 4a64758de9e8ceded2c481ee526440687fe2f3a828e3a813f87753ad30847b56 certified OpenPGP key blocks available on keybase.io/stefan_claas _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users