[Cryptography] Well Known Bad Idea: ask users to make security decisions, or If you *work* for Apple, please update your email software

[Henry Baker]

-----Original Message-----
From: John Levine <johnl at iecc.com>
Sent: Oct 5, 2025 12:18 PM
To: <cryptography at metzdowd.com>
Cc: <hbaker1 at pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: [Cryptography] Well Known Bad Idea: ask users to make security decisions, or If you *work* for Apple, please update your email software

[[ probably not worth sending to the list ]]

It appears that Henry Baker said:
>Apple has "enshitified" email, because they don't want Apple users talking to anyone
>outside their "walled gardenXXXXXXprison" -- just look at their blue v. green "bubbles"
>on text messages.

I dunno about you but I exchange email with icloud.com and me.com
users every day without any trouble. While I may have my own opinions
about Apple's mail programs, they are hardly the only ones to show the
display name rather than the address. Gmail, Thunderbird abd Outlook
do too.

The blue and green bubbles show whether a message is E2E encrypted,
which seems like a reasonable idea to me.

R's,
John

---
Thunderbird (used primarily by wizards!):

My Thunderbird settings:
Message List: Preferred address display format: "Full name and email address"
***** "Show only 'display name' for people in my address book" *****
[This eminent rationality appears far beyond Apple UX people's capabilities.]

Another email program: shows "display name", but *hovering* with the mouse over the
display name shows both the display name and the full email address.

Apple: I have to actually click on the "display name" to get the full email address to show
(on MacOS); I have no idea how to get the email address to show in iPhoneOS -- I usually
have to display the entire email message in "raw ascii format" (with all headers), which is one
hell of a lot uglier than a simple email address.  This is 100X too far beyond the capabilities
of many/most family members, as well as beyond the capabilities of 95% of the Apple
user base.