Re: PGP to PC mail integration

At 08:54 1996-02-28 -0500, lmccarth@cs.umass.edu wrote:
>Mike Ingle writes:
>> Instead of messing with user interfaces, 
>
>I wrote:
># Would you be stuck if you wanted to send something unsigned and/or 
># unencrypted ?
>
>Matts writes:
>% Nope. The VB program should give a popup window where you can enter your
>% passphrase to sign/decrypt the message. Such a popup can have a <NO> button
>% if you don't want it to do its thing.
>
>Sure sounds like a user interface to me. <shrug>

Sure, what did you expect? A program that obtains your pass phrase without a
user interface?!? That would be a neat hack if you could pull it off. Should
it do mind reading, or just crack the pass phrase by brute force?

Seriously, the idea here is that the pgp front end shouldn't deal with the
user interface in your present mail program. Nobody (before you) have
considered doing it completely without a user interface.

Matts

Matts-

Please don't send me extra copies of mail sent to cypherpunks. I put
that Reply-To: header in there very deliberately.

Matts writes:
> Nope. The VB program should give a popup window where you can enter your
> passphrase to sign/decrypt the message. 

I wrote:
# Sure sounds like a user interface to me. <shrug>

Matts writes:
> Sure, what did you expect? A program that obtains your pass phrase without a
> user interface?!? 

No, a program that doesn't obtain your passphrase at all.

Go back and read what Mike Ingle wrote 
(http://www.hks.net/cpunks/cpunks-24/1540.html)

He said "Instead of messing with user interfaces", and talked about a program
that "encrypts any mail it has a PGP key for the recipient of". That
sounds a hell of a lot like a program with no user interface to me. 
Furthermore, in my sheltered life, I don't know of any mail proxies that
have user interfaces. Mike has given absolutely no indication that the
program he proposes makes any attempt to base its decisions on user input,
including passphrases. Hence my original question.

I'm very happy for you if you have in mind a program that does something
different. But I don't see how it's relevant to whatever questions I
might ask about the program Mike Ingle has in mind.

-Lewis