Hello Simon, On Sun, 15 Dec 2002 00:00:05 +0000 GMT (15/12/02, 07:00 +0700 GMT), Simon Blake wrote:
ACM>>>> This is not the case with S/MIME. Can you suppress sending your ACM>>>> public key block repeatedly and with every message you send using ACM>>>> S/MIME? In fact, this is my main problem with using it. >>> That's not the point here at all really, although it is a valid point of >>> course. For me, this *is* the point. Why do you need to send me your certificate over and over again, with each message? I imported it the first time, thanks. JBL>> What I am suggesting is that S/MIME signing is not necessary in the JBL>> context of a discussion list where the identity of the poster is not JBL>> important... <snip> > I really did understand, and call me stubborn, but I still disagree. The > delivery method of S/MIME is different to PGP... and I know that some people > see it as 'bandwidth unfriendly', but that's the way it works, and people > are going to have to learn to live with it. This last sentence prompted me to type this reply (other than that, I agree with Allie). What you are saying is, "I have ADSL, I don't notice any difference in bandwidth, so let's waste it as much as we can". You go on to say that others waste bandwidth as well (flash etc), so it should be OK. I have news for you. You live in a highly-industrialised country, and you won't notice the waste you create. The newsflash is that not eveybody lives in a highly-industrialised country. Have you any idea how much the internet backbone between Bangkok and Phnom Penh cost and what the *total* bandwidth of that is? Bandwidth is not free, somebody has to pay for it. Cambodia now has three international links; let's waste most of it with S/MIME certificates on mailing lists, yeah. OK, I live in Bangkok, which is in a slightly better situation: we have a few more cables (and satellite links), as there are a lot more internet users here. Each of who experiences a speed that is a little fraction of the speed that you take for granted. Every now and then, one of the several-megabyte international links break, and every single internet user in Thailand can feel it. Web pages take minutes to load, Emails download at 200 CPS, and so on. But bandwidth doesn't matter to you, so let's send the S/MIME certificate with every posting, just for the heck of it. People in developing countries should get used to it and stop whining. Yeah. > This is the direction that we are moving in: technologies are using more and > more bandwidth as they are developed and increase in popularity. And that is *not* OK, contrary to your beliefs. Oh, and did I mention that there are no flat rates in Thailand, and I connect by pay-per-minute dial-up? ADSL is hardly affordable and, so people say, not really faster than dial-up. Cable connections simply don't exist. > but I nonetheless acknowledge S/MIME's current value, and believe > that other users should comes to terms with its presence and usage. If you want to prove your identity with every message (i.e. show me your passport each time you utter any sentence), do that in a PM environment, if your mails are so sensitive. I can see absolutely no value of posting your S/MIME certificate on a mailing list with every posting. The only ones who I wold encourage to sign (PGP preferred) their messages are the mods, because if someone impersonates them, havoc could be caused. Unless, of course, testing and learning S/MIME is the issue. People are not discouraged to ask about TB's S/MIME function, and it is only natural that this requires them to S/MIME sign the related messages to see whether it works. -- Cheers, Thomas. Moderator der deutschen The Bat! Beginner Liste. Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how it remains so popular? Message reply created with The Bat! 1.62 Christmas Edition under Chinese Windows 98 4.10 Build 2222 A using an AMD Athlon K7 1.2GHz, 128MB RAM ________________________________________________ Current version is 1.62 | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
