"Mailcrypt: An Emacs/PGP Interface", by Pat LoPresti. This page has
been the Mailcrypt homepage since October 10, 1995. It is still
the distribution site for version 3.4 of Mailcrypt--a rock-solid
version still to be recommended if you use only PGP 2.6.x.
"Cryptography, PGP, and Your Privacy", by Fran Litterio. This page is
simply excellent. It makes all the other References in this chapter
redundant, but we will include them anyway for redundancy.
The `alt.security.pgp' newsgroup is a good place to go for
discussion about PGP, as well as any topic which any fool anywhere ever
thinks is related to PGP. It is also a good last resort for getting
answers to questions, but please read the FAQ lists first.
Brian LaMacchia (bal@zurich.ai.mit.edu) has put together a World Wide
Web interface to the public key servers (see section 9.2 Key Servers).
Mailcrypt uses this interface by default when attempting to fetch keys
via HTTP (see section 5.3 HTTP Fetch); most people get to his interface through
this page.
The Cypherpunks are dedicated to taking proactive measures to ensure
privacy in the digital age. They wrote the software for, and operate
many of, the anonymous remailers currently in existence.
Raph Levien actively maintains a remailer list which Mailcrypt knows how
to parse. If you are impressed by how easy it is to configure
Mailcrypt's remailer functions, Raph is the one to thank. Raph's page
also has many useful links.
Lance Cottrell is the author of Mixmaster. His home page is the
canonical source for information on Mixmaster and is a good source for
PGP pointers in general.
Key servers are machines with a publicly accessible interface to
an enormous global public keyring. Anyone may add keys to or query this
keyring. Each key server holds a complete copy of the global keyring,
and they arrange to keep one another informed of additions they receive.
This means you can tell any key server to add your public key to the
global keyring, and all of the other servers will know about it within a
day or so. Then anyone will be able to query any key server to obtain
your public key.
To add your key to the keyservers, send an Email message to
pgp-public-keys@pgp.ai.mit.edu with a subject line of `ADD'
and a body containing your public key block. With Mailcrypt installed,
you can just type C-c / x to insert your public key block
(see section 2.3 Inserting a Public Key Block) into the body of the message.
For help with the Email interface to the key servers, send a message
with a subject line of `HELP'. For a World Wide Web interface to
the key servers, see Brian LaMacchia's home page at
http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bal/.
Some other key servers include:
pgp-public-keys@jpunix.com
pgp-public-keys@kub.nl
pgp-public-keys@uit.no
pgp-public-keys@pgp.ox.ac.uk
For a complete list, consult any good online repository of PGP
information (see section 9.1 Online Resources).
It is strongly recommended that you submit your key to the key servers,
since many humans and programs (including Mailcrypt) may look for it
there. Besides, it takes mere seconds and the pain passes quickly.
If you would like to automatically receive information about new
releases of Mailcrypt, send Email to
`mc-announce-request@cag.lcs.mit.edu' asking to be placed on the
`mc-announce' mailing list. The mailing list is maintained
manually, so please be patient.
The `mc-announce' list is reserved for announcements of new
Mailcrypt versions, so it has extremely low volume. We encourage you to
add yourself so we can get a rough idea of how many people are using
our package.
Cryptography in general, PGP in particular, and free software are
politically somewhat controversial topics. Heck, in the U.S. Congress,
freedom of speech is a controversial topic. Anyway, here are some
organizations you should definitely watch and preferably send lots of
money.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
The EFF (http://www.eff.org/) works to protect civil liberties in
cyberspace. They also maintain an impressive collection of on-line
resources. If you like Mailcrypt so much that you wish you had paid for
it, this is the number one place we would want to see your money go.
The EFF newsgroups, `comp.org.eff.news' and
`comp.org.eff.talk', are required reading for the well-informed.
The League for Programming Freedom
The LPF (http://www.lpf.org/) works to fight software patents,
which threaten to make free software like Mailcrypt impossible.
The Center for Democracy and Technology
The CDT (http://www.cdt.org/) has essentially the same goals as
the EFF, but is more of a lobbying group.