1. you don't want to leave the user guessing: this is a very bad trait
in software and when it is manifest it makes the users mad.  if the
signature is invalid,-- say so;   if the signature does not validate the
message: say so.    But don't leave the user guessing.

2. I still maintain that if the user presses SIGNATURE that PGP/MIME
should activate by default.

3. if you must send clear text, send it as an attachment.   you can add
the signature by creating a detached signature

On 04/07/2015 02:05 PM, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
> In a thread over on [email protected], i did a little thinking about the
> UI/UX for cleartext signature verification in e-mail clients.
>
> A thought experiment about clearsigned messages follows; i'd be happy to
> hear feedback.
>
>  * For cleartext messages, what if enigmail treated a bad signature and
>    no signature in exactly the same way, from the receiving user's
>    perspective?
>
>    There are two ways this could be done:
>
>     0) for broken signatures, simply show no indication that enigmail
>        ever thought there might have been a signature on the message
>
>     1) for all unsigned messages, and for all messages with broken
>        signatures, always show a simple, passive enigmail header that
>        says "this message had no valid signature"
>
>
> The rationale that lead me to this thought experiment is:
>
>  a) many MTAs can accidentally break signatures due to a variety of
>     reasons (line-wrapping, re-encoding, filtering, markup, etc)
>
>  b) it is trivial for any MTA that wants to *deliberately* break a
>     signature to do so.
>
>  c) it is trivial for a malicious MTA to modify an unsigned message so
>     that it looks like it has a broken signature from anyone it wants.
>
>  d) most users are not prepared to debug or repair failed signatures in
>     any way.  At best, they can forward the message to someone with more
>     skill who can look into it further.
>
>  e) from an end-user perspective, a broken signature is actually not
>     much different than no signature at all.  why highlight the
>     difference?
>
>
> What do you think?
>
>      --dkg
>
> PS the above proposal is not intended to address anything about
>    signed+encrypted messages; cleartext messages only.
>
> PPS i believe the above proposal is independent of the inline PGP
>     vs. PGP/MIME question.  If we can avoid this thread getting bogged
>     down in inline-vs-PGP/MIME, that would be lovely.
>
> PPPS as a software developer, a debugger, and someone who likes to look
>      at the internals of things, i find this proposal horrifying.
>      However, as someone who cares about the sanity of non-technical
>      users, i'm not sure how to justify inflicting the "BAD SIGNATURE"
>      UI/UX on them when there's not much they can do about it.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> enigmail-users mailing list
> [email protected]
> To unsubscribe or make changes to your subscription click here:
> https://admin.hostpoint.ch/mailman/listinfo/enigmail-users_enigmail.net

-- 
/Mike

_______________________________________________
enigmail-users mailing list
[email protected]
To unsubscribe or make changes to your subscription click here:
https://admin.hostpoint.ch/mailman/listinfo/enigmail-users_enigmail.net

Reply via email to