Concerning _RULEMAKING: PGP SIGS_, Joe Nicholson said to Bill Cheek in 
SCANRADIO:
 BC>> The issue hasn't been raised before.  But PGP and/or digital
 BC>> signatures are a coming standard and way of life throughout
 BC>> networking, and so I am reluctant to nix the procedures just yet.
 JN> 
 JN> They should be banned as violation of POLICY4's encryption rule.
_quote_
2.1.4  Encryption and Review of Mail
FidoNet is an amateur system.  Our technology is such that the privacy
of messages cannot be guaranteed.  As a sysop, you have the right to
review traffic flowing through your system, if for no other reason
than to ensure that the system is not being used for illegal or
commercial purposes.  Encryption obviously makes this review
impossible.  Therefore, encrypted and/or commercial traffic that is
routed without the express permission of all the links in the delivery
system constitutes annoying behavior.  See section 1.3.6 for a
definition of commercial traffic.
_endquote_
But PGP *signed* messages do not violate the encryption rule.  The signature 
is not a secret message that sysops can't review.  It's simply some 
checksumming information that proves that the message was sent by who it says 
it was and hasn't been altered since it was sent.  And by downloading the 
proper public key, the sysop can validate this checksum just like anybody 
else can.
However, these things do take up a lot of space.  For that reason, I'd hate 
to see them used on a regular basis, especially if they're longer than the 
messages they're protecting.
... *CAUTION* Revenge is authorized for use only on ex-wives!
--- JetMail 0.99beta22
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