On Sep 9, 2013, at 5:19 PM, David Morris <dwm@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Mon, 9 Sep 2013, Ted Lemon wrote: > >> It might be worth thinking about why ssh and ssl work so well, and PGP/GPG don't. > > Umm, I question a conclusion that either ssh or ssl work well. It's in widespread use. Hence, it works well. I agree that it could work better, but that's not what I mean by "work well." PGP/GPG are _not_ in widespread use, and it is in that sense that I am suggesting that they do not "work well." Maybe a better way of putting it is that they are successful protocols, in the RFC 5218 sense. None of the issues you mention are protocol issues—they are all usability issues, and the reason they haven't been addressed is that the underlying mechanism works so well people do what they have to to overcome the usability issues. None of which should be taken as discouragement for doing something about the usability issues, should you be willing to spend time on that.