Re: ambitions of Abi-word

Alan Horkan wrote:
[snip]
> 20. Encrypting documents

What do you have in mind? This is an interesting
problem because there
is
strong cryptographic encrypition which is best done by
using PGP to
encrypt the whole document when it is finished. Then
there are simple
insecure methods for marking documents as read only
but these can
always
be bypassed (any cryptography can be bypassed if you
have enough time
and
resources) so we need to undo the perception this is
actual "security"
as opposed to a recommendation from the author.
[snip][end quote]

It seems to me the big problem is the Save function,
and any autosaving that may be in effect. The result
of these is that Abi is frequently writing and
overwriting files in plaintext, and the user isn't
quite sure where they are on the disk, thus whether
there are snippets of plaintext lying around for
snoopers to find even after he has encrypted the final
version using some other program.

One simple solution would be to have a Save Through
Filter function in the Files menu, whose effect is
simply to invoke some external program, specified in
the configuration data, and pass it the current text
and the name of the file to be updated. Then the user
can use his favorite encryption program from within
Abi, transparently, and nothing ever gets to disk in plaintext.

                
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Received on Mon Nov 21 03:23:37 2005