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Re: [Endymail] Off we go...

Phillip Hallam-Baker <phill@hallambaker.com> Thu, 28 August 2014 21:44 UTC

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Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 17:44:09 -0400
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From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <phill@hallambaker.com>
To: Cyrus Daboo <cyrus@daboo.name>
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Cc: Pete Resnick <presnick@qti.qualcomm.com>, endymail <endymail@ietf.org>, Stephen Farrell <stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie>
Subject: Re: [Endymail] Off we go...
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On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 4:57 PM, Cyrus Daboo <cyrus@daboo.name> wrote:
> Hi Phillip,
>
>
> --On August 26, 2014 at 10:23:02 PM -0400 Phillip Hallam-Baker
> <phill@hallambaker.com> wrote:
>
>> And before you start off telling me about PGP, getting that to work
>> proved so tedious I gave up
>
>
> Right, but some major players are getting onboard with OpenPGP, as per
> <http://www.pcworld.com/article/2462852/yahoo-mail-to-support-end-to-end-pgp-encryption-by-2015.html>.
> So one would hope they will tackle usability given the broad scope of their
> user base.

So far I don't see a supported product from either.

The problem with usability is that there is a naive version which
amounts to 'hide all the cruft from the user so they don't notice'. In
furniture terms this is like sticking veneer over everything so people
don't notice its made from chipboard. Calling chipboard engineered
wood doesn't change things either.

To make either PGP or S/MIME usable we need to address the structural
issues that are making it hard to use. In particular:

* Easy way to migrate encryption keys into new devices.

* Key recovery mechanisms so people don't loose their mail by accident.

* Easy key rollover


These are not hard to do if they are considered problems that have to
be solved. But what has happened in the past is that they have been
shuffled under the mat as 'advanced user problems'.

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