From lazylion at netcom.com  Tue Jul 27 23:11:32 1993
From: lazylion at netcom.com (Ben Weiss)
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 23:11:32 PDT
Subject: rfc822 headers include encrypt std
Message-ID: <9307280610.AA18889@netcom2.netcom.com>


I've only been on the list a few days now, and the net for only a few
weeks.  Plesae pardon the apology :) but could someone please explain
to me why we are not putting an "Encryption: PGP <my-public-key>" line
in the header of each of our messages as allowed by RFC 822 (which I
was just reading for the first time today)

---Begin quote of RFC822 on Internet Message Header formats:---

     4.7.3.  ENCRYPTED

             Sometimes,  data  encryption  is  used  to  increase  the
        privacy  of  message  contents.   If the body of a message has
        been encrypted, to keep its contents private, the  "Encrypted"
        field  can be used to note the fact and to indicate the nature
        of the encryption.  The first <word> parameter  indicates  the
        software  used  to  encrypt the body, and the second, optional
        <word> is intended to  aid  the  recipient  in  selecting  the
        proper  decryption  key.   This  code word may be viewed as an
        index to a table of keys held by the recipient.

---End quote of RFC822 on Internet Message Header formats---

This would certainly solve many obvious problems.  Of course, you all
have seen this stuff for years and are not doing it so there must be
some really interesting reason... ?

Feel free to respond to me by email instead of posting to the group
and if anyone else wants to know, I'll forward responses to them.  If
I've struck a chord, by all means let's discuss this as well as t-shirts.

BTW, I'm looking forward to subscribing to alt.cypherpunks.merchandising :)