Disclaimer within signed body?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----


It's been suggested that I put my "signature disclaimer" within the signed
block.  There are several pluses and minuses to this, and I wanted to see
what others think (As an aside, by the way, I think the aesthetics of
the output are important).

As Eric pointed out to me last night, in general it's bad to modify the body
of a message.  I think that what I've been doing is fine, as the clear
distinction betweem original message and additional stuff is maintained.

However: the disclaimer should really be bound to the signature.  Using the
"comment" block won't do this, since PGP does not use it as part of the
signature.

Additionally, people whose software runs the messages through PGP will never
see the disclaimer if it's outside of the signed block.

What are folks' opinions on this?  My options are:

	- Do nothing.  Memory and the general appearance of the disclaimer
		are enough that people won't be fooled by a message with
		a removed disclaimer.

	- Put the disclaimer within the signature block.  In essence, doing
		nothing as above, but that's what the comment block is 
		there for and it might look nicer.

	- Put the disclaimer at the top of the signed body.  Ugly, since
		it immediately forces its presence in a message, but effective
		for the same reason.

	- Put the disclaimer at the bottom of the signed body.  It's still
		modifying the signed body, but in a much less obtrusive 
		manner.

Input?
- --
Todd Masco     | "Roam home to a dome, Where Georgian and Gothic once stood
cactus@hks.net |  Now chemical bonds alone guard our blond(e)s,
cactus@bb.com  |  And even the plumbing looks good."  - B Fuller

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Version: 2.6.2

iQBFAwUBLt+AfCoZzwIn1bdtAQF0uQF/R2+Wc4tKXs0/+Qc79ln01EUOT8seW4wC
tKLa8H8CGAI33Exh/FeMvtYjnUEdPcXL
=5852
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[This message has been signed by an auto-signing service.
 A valid signature means only that it has been received at
 the address belonging to the signature and forwarded.]

Todd's autosigner raises some good issues about what signatures can
actually represent.  Todd's service takes an incoming message,
attaches a note about technical means and also a signature.

As Todd points out, this signature represents the fact that a message
destined for the cypherpunks list passed through his server.  But Todd
also wants the signature to attest to the disclaimer attached to the
mail.  The signature, therefore must be affected by both segments of
text, that is, the disclaimer must be inside the signature.

There is also, however a desideratum that the original message be
preserved to the greatest degree possible.  Since two text segments
must go inside the sig block, there must be a packaging syntax to
represent a two part message composed of the original message and the
disclaimer.  There is already a syntax which accomplishes this for
email--MIME.


I'm not going to get the syntax of this example right.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--- Begin signed message ---
::
Content-Type: multipart/mixed
Content-Length: [...]
Boundary: ===

Content-Type: text/ascii
===
<original message>
===
Content-Type: text/ascii disclaimer
===
<disclaimer>
===
--- Begin signature ---
a;sdfj;alsdjf;a lsjas;ldkfj;asjdf;askjdf;laskjdfdf
a;sdfj;asdjf;asfj;alsjdf;aljdf;alsdjf;alsjdf;asjdf
--- End signed message ---
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now as far as aesthetics, this has got a lot of screenjunk in it.  It
does, however, represent exactly what is going on in a way that the
right kind of MIME capable reader can make exact use of.

I'm not advocating this.  I do think, though, that a minimal solution
to all the criteria at once looks a lot like this.

Eric