From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general,gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: encrypt.el in No Gnus 0.7 Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:16:18 -0500 Message-ID: References: <87zly3y4ru.fsf@catnip.gol.com> <87odejy30k.fsf@catnip.gol.com> <54a15d860710311830s4fa203e3y53fbd6f51496f007@mail.gmail.com> <54a15d860711010824w6888aafdgb0a0e5d48f6fdebb@mail.gmail.com> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1194315437 16651 80.91.229.12 (6 Nov 2007 02:17:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 02:17:17 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ueno@unixuser.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, ding@gnus.org, miles@gnu.org To: Ted Zlatanov Original-X-From: ding-owner+M14056@lists.math.uh.edu Tue Nov 06 03:17:18 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ding-account@gmane.org Original-Received: from util0.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.18]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IpE0E-0002LX-1g for ding-account@gmane.org; Tue, 06 Nov 2007 03:17:18 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.math.uh.edu) by util0.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1IpDzT-0008K0-7F; Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:16:31 -0600 Original-Received: from mx1.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.32]) by util0.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1IpDzQ-0008Jg-7p for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:16:28 -0600 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.231.51]) by mx1.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IpDzJ-0000Jd-Ny for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:16:28 -0600 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1IpDzE-0000xT-00 for ; Tue, 06 Nov 2007 03:16:16 +0100 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IpDzG-0003iD-PJ; Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:16:18 -0500 In-reply-to: (message from Ted Zlatanov on Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:13:47 -0600) X-Spam-Score: -2.4 (--) List-ID: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:65557 gmane.emacs.devel:82612 Archived-At: In my experience, giving users creative freedom is always worth it. The question is whether to give users certain facilities. Emacs is built around the idea of letting users do what they want, isn't it? In Emacs, users can change any Lisp code at run time. This general facility, which lets users do absolutely whatever they want, means we do not need to provide specific customization features for everything somebody would like to change. We only provide specific customization features where they are substantially useful. Providing every hook that someone might imaginably want is an explicit non-goal of Emacs development. (And always has been.) RS> Is there any sign that users use it? The package was in Gnus, and I don't have bug reports. I have not advertised the library so far, except for brief notes to Gnus users. So I don't have a sample big enough to answer your question. In other words, there is no indication that users actually use this particular customization facility. You could post a request where Gnus users will see it, asking them to let you know if they have used it. I found a few GPL ones (just a sample list) with a simple web search: MCrypt http://mcrypt.sourceforge.net/ AxCrypt http://www.axantum.com/AxCrypt/ ScramDisk 4 Linux http://sourceforge.net/projects/sd4l/ Several steganography tools (hide data inside an image, for example) We are miscommunicating. I think you mean that in principle they could be useful for encryption. Maybe they are. But the question is whether this particular feature is useful, not whether other useful encryption programs exist. - use BBDB to store shared keys or public keys - get shared or public keys from an IMAP server (stored in a message) - on a CVS/SVN/etc. checkin/checkout, use another file in the repository to modify the shared key or as the shared key I think the right place to implement any of these features is elsewhere. - pure Lisp ciphers for quick experimentation and sharing That seems unimportant to me. In any case, the user wouldn't select a cipher each time. The encrypt-find-model function will determine the encryption model, currently from an alist. The user chooses, for example, that ~/.authinfo is encrypted with GnuPG, but ~/emacs/*.el will use cipher X because it's more appropriate. Perhaps cipher X is the XOR cipher because the user is OK with simple obfuscation. It does not seem very useful. The main use of simple obfuscation ciphers is in sending mail, and for that purpose, you cannot tell from a file name (there's none) or a buffer name (it's the same as always) whether to do it.