Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!pmafire!uudell!bigtex!texsun!male!newstop!exodus!kessler From: kessler@hacketorium.Eng.Sun.COM (Tom &) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: secure mail Message-ID: Date: 10 Dec 90 20:08:19 GMT References: Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM Distribution: usa Organization: Rocket Scientists Anonymous Lines: 17 In-reply-to: dave%snowgoose@uunet.uu.net's message of 6 Dec 90 07:42:19 GMT You might want to look into the Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) experiment which is proceeding on the internet. The protocols and procedures are published in RFC's 1113 - 1115. As a gross oversimplification the basic idea is that an RSA based algorithm is used to encrypt a des key which is used to encrypt the message or can be used as a "digital signature". The solutions provided for distributing keys would need some work to function in a non-internet environment. Unfortunately RSA and the related algorithms that are "usefull" for this application are patented (I'm no crypto expert but I've been led to believe that this is true). Anyway if you want more information you can get the RFC's or send mail to pem-info@tis.com --Tom Kessler