[Enigmail] use of openPGP

[Bo Berglund]

On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:59:26 -0500, "Robert J. Hansen"
<rjh at sixdemonbag.org> wrote:

>Bo Berglund wrote:
>> Is this really so hard to understand???
>
>Yes.
>
>The average American has between a sixth and ninth-grade understanding
>of mathematics, depending on who's doing the study.  Other countries are
>not substantially better except for school-age children.
>
>People who are mathematically literate tend to way, way, _way_
>overestimate the mathematical literacy of average people.  Good popular
>science writing aims for about an eighth-grade level of literacy.
>
>Very, very few eighth graders have the mathematical chops required to
>understand asymmetric cryptography.  Even the concepts involved will be
>largely incomprehensible.
>
>A little sympathy is probably more appropriate than a little incredulity.

I just pointed out that the OP had received several replies already
that outlined how it worked and still he kept on saying that you need
the recipient's *seccret* key to send him an encrypted message.

It kind of pissed me off when he seemed not to take in what the other
responders had *already* explained....

So I just asked if it really was so hard to understand.
I did not want him to understand the secrets behind cryptography, just
the concept of a secret and a public key working together. And what
would the point of a *secret* key be if you needed to tell everyone
what it is in order for them to send messages to you????
I believe he did not think at all, even on a very basic level.

Bo Berglund