From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Sep 18 2000 - 04:04:56 CDT
In <20000916162029.A14480@main.templetons.com> Brad Templeton <brad@templetons.com> writes:
>Well, the most compelling criticism of my own drafts was that there
>wasn't an operating implementation of the code. These drafts
>are not better on that score, ...
Eh? There is an operating implementation of the code incorporated in the
draft.
> and more to the point, they never will
>be because they describe a system of pretty limited utility. Without
>certificates, USENET signature isn't good for much other than what
>people are using ad-hoc signatures systems to do now, and they don't
>scale.
A certificate system will follow in due course, but it is a much more
complex issue, and needn't affect the basic signing mechanisms. Pgpverify
has been running fine for several years without a certificate system.
>>
>>
>> The most striking conclusion of Charles's poll was that so few answered.
>> Either very few people follow this list these days, or there was some-
>> thing flawed with the poll.
>I actually thought signing was the first goal of this group, oddly enough,
>and the charter listed it as such from what I recall.
And there I would agree with you. But others seem to think getting the
present draft completed is more important (but we would still need to do
some more polishing of the text around the control messages area if the
present draft is to go out without a signature mechanism). My intention,
as stated, is to proceed with both in parallel, but to make sure that the
main USEFOR work takes priority if/when any such conflict arises.
-- Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------ Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl Voice/Fax: +44 161 437 4506 Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5