Re: ambitions of Abi-word

r coyne wrote:

>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.
>
>
>
>
I see you’re looking at it very thorough! That’s nice. Unfortunately I’m
no programmer, so I might be thinking to easy about it. Would it be a
suggestion to use plain text and add an user dialog after saving an
encrypted document and ask the user to erase all dumpfiles (=rewright it
with zeros or what ever?)

>
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Received on Mon Nov 21 20:21:16 2005