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From: zwicky@erg.sri.com (Elizabeth Zwicky)
Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy,comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: E-mail Privacy
Message-ID: <1991Jun5.183836.29840@erg.sri.com>
Date: 5 Jun 91 18:38:36 GMT
References: <1991Jun3.175631.1451@sci34hub.sci.com> <1991Jun3.211751.2686@mprgate.mpr <1161@mwtech.UUCP>
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In article <1161@mwtech.UUCP> martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel) writes:
>Did I hear you say the latter scenario is quite unrealistic? Nobody would
>expect from the sysadmin to give him back the clear text of some encrypted
>file? 

Oh no, you didn't hear *me* say that. We went to a great deal of
trouble to set up an encryption procedure that used an encryption we
couldn't break, and we spend all sorts of time pointing out to people
that once you encrypt things, that's it - no key, no document. We
still get calls regularly asking us to decrypt things. When we tell
people we can't decrypt them, they usually ask us to just tell them
the key, then.  A lot of people think that system administration is
just magic - this also explains the people who call up and ask angrily
why you haven't fixed something yet, and then turn out never to have
reported it broken. They think you have a mystical connection to the
machine and you will simply *know* when something isn't working. 

	Elizabeth Zwicky
	zwicky@erg.sri.com