Re: Moving files from lisp/gnus/ to lisp/net/?

[Stefan Monnier]

> There are many reasons why the XOR cipher is desirable - not the least
> of which is that it depends on nothing and is very fast.  Encryption
> is just a deterrent, like any other kind of data security, so it makes
> sense to have something trivial in addition to the real methods like
> GnuPG.

While I can agree that we shouldn't rule them out, such cyphers should not
constrain the interface too much, because they are not the important case.

> You are right, however, that GnuPG can indicate that decryption
> failed.  So maybe some ciphers should have the property :fail-aware
> and the code will do the passwords accordingly.  Do you think this is
> the right approach?

I'd rather assume they *all* are fail-aware, and for those rare which
aren't, just make them always say "success".

The XOR cypher might be great because it's fast and depends on nothing but
it provides really lousy security in most cases (tho better than ROT13), so
we shouldn't worry too much whether the support for XOR is optimal or not.
OTOH good support for GnuPG is important because it's a tool that's much
more used and practically useful.


        Stefan