Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com
From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: SecretMail
Summary: marketing question
Message-ID: <89146@sgi.sgi.com>
Date: 6 Mar 91 18:35:36 GMT
References: <9103061407.AA17329@dolphin.omni.co>
Sender: guest@sgi.sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 37

In article <9103061407.AA17329@dolphin.omni.co>, rpaul@dolphin.omni.co (Rodian Paul) writes:
> 
> Say, with all the embellishments SGI has been adding to BSD Mail, how
> about some form of encrypted mail in the future? Unless of course I've
> missed the boat and it's allready incorporated.
> 
> We tend to send a fair amount of confidential stuff between these
> sushi-shores and the real world, but it's a pain to have to crypt/uuencode
> and uudecode/crypt time and time again. Anyway could this stuff be
> incorporated in a future release?


Would you (or others) like a proprietary mechanism that would work only
between IRIS's?

Are you interested in the Internet Secure Mail project?  Is the cost of
"tickets" a consideration?  (That uses patented RSA crypto stuff, and
involves something like $25 for the right to send things.  I haven't
figured out if the right is for a company or for an individual, or for how
many From: addresses.  I don't know how many messages the ticket is lasts,
nor how many months or years.  There has been some recent controversy on
these issues, so exact answers many not yet be knowable.)

How important are "multimedia" or other non-text inclusions?  What about
8-bit text?  Would you rather have X.400 or other, esp. non-UNIX gateways
or mechanisms?  Again, do you want a standard or something proprietary?

There is a lot of technical activity in the Internet and UNIX communities
related to these subjects.  However, it seems many of the people concerned
are implementors and designers.

Feel free to post answers so that the people working at other workstations
companies that read this newsgroup/mailing list can see them.  A consensus
would benefit everyone.


Vernon Schryver,  vjs@sgi.com