Re: PGP etiquette.
On Sat, Oct 14, 2006 at 04:25:01PM +0200, Ismael Valladolid Torres wrote:
> Jonathan Daugherty escribe:
> > I subscribe to a number of mailing lists and I'm concerned about an
> > etiquette violation, but I can't find any information. The document
> > alludes to a debate on the issue, but searching hasn't revealed any
> > strong opinions on the matter.
> In some mailing lists signed mail is welcome, mainly in those devoted
> to Linux or Open Source. For some other mailing lists and recipients
> signed mail is uncomfortable to read, specially if they're using email
> clients where management of signed mail is not easy.
I'll just add that PGP/MIME certificates cause problems for some folks,
and even if not, are often confusing to people. While they may be
uglier, I usually clearsign *if* I'm signing a message and if I'm not
sending to someone who I know can deal with PGP/MIME. Clearsigning also
makes it easier for someone who didn't receive the message to verify
later from an archive (assuming the message hasn't been munged at all) -
just cut / paste into a file.
Signed messages can cause problems for archives (especially signed
messages w/ archiving software that doesn't grok MIME). And, signing
messages does tend to make them at least a little bit bigger (though PGP
isn't as horrible as S/MIME in this regard).
I personally don't think there's that much point in signing messages to
discussion lists, unless you're making some sort of announcement that
needs to be authenticated. I have seen the argument that signing every
message makes it easier for people to tell that person XYZ is the same
person XYZ who normally posts to the list, whereas if you just sign when
you have something important to say, it might be harder for people to
know you're the same person.
I kind of find it a little annoying when people feel the need to sign
everything to a list.. it's usually newbie linux weenies who are like
"OMG LOOK AT MY COOL DECODER RING".
The biggest problem I have with PGP is that virtually no one I'd
actually want to encrypt (and, to a lesser extent, sign) messages to is
technical enough to use it properly.
w