NPR : E-Mail Encryption Rare in Everyday Use

[Paul Hoffman]

At 3:29 PM +0100 2/24/06, Philipp Gühring wrote:
>  > Phil *does* have a problem with key management. He knows how to do
>>  it, but his communications partners are not as good as he is.
>
>Phil Z doesn´t know how to do it himself, at least with PGP.
>He told me that he doesn´t sign people´s keys who ask for it, simply because
>it would pollute his keyring on his computer, and he couldn´t work with a
>keyring with thousands of people on it anymore.

It is a bit harsh to equate "doesn't want to do it because of the 
hassle" with "doesn't know how to do it".

This is my original disagreement with Ed's message. It can be done, 
and when you do it it works, but it is too difficult for most people 
to bother with. I think we all agree on those three facts, just not 
on what to label the last one.

>So PGP obviously has a usability and scalability problem.

Fully agree, and I would certainly extend that to S/MIME as well.


--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

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