Re: pgp signing in van

[Ted Lemon <[e-mail]>]

On Sep 9, 2013, at 8:43 AM, Michael Richardson <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> What's the upside to signing my email?  I know why I want everybody I
>> know to sign my email, but what's the upside for me if I do it?  Until
>> there's a clear win, it's not going to happen.
> 
> It's what establishes the reputation of the key that signs your email.
> That's why having people show up to an IETF PGP signing party, when those
> people haven't been using the key is useless.   If we think that IETF
> is a meritocracy, then it doesn't matter what your government ID is.
> 
> It matters what you said on the mailing list.

On Sep 9, 2013, at 12:28 AM, [e-mail] wrote:
> There is no upside.
> 
> By signing your mail you lose plausible deniability, remove legal doubt as to what you said...

Your checks are in the mail.

Seriously, this perfectly illustrates the reason why PGP hasn't seen widespread deployment: it doesn't address a use case that anybody understands or cares about, and it appears to address a use case that people actually would like to avoid.

Here is the current use model for PGP:

(1) I generate a key and sign all my email with it
(2) People reading my email see an obscure indicator somewhere in my email that indicates that it was signed by either an unknown key (nearly always) or a known key (I don't even know what that looks like)
(3) ???
(4) WIN!

First of all, this does nothing to preserve privacy, so I don't know why we're even talking about it.   PGP in principle could be used to encrypt communication, but because we don't really have an agreed-upon trust model, this is a use case that only occurs when people are _highly motivated_ to protect their privacy, and that's not most people, and not most of the time.

This stuff matters.   Thinking about the use model for the tools we build is _the most important aspect_ of protecting peoples' privacy.   If we don't think about these things, we're just producing cool toys that will never see general use.

I can actually describe a use model for PGP that accomplishes what Michael wants without accomplishing what Lloyd doesn't want, but let's leave that for another conversation.   The point I wanted to make is very simply that if we don't think about use models, we will never get to (4).