[Mailman-Developers] GSoC Updates

Terri Oda terri at zone12.com
Thu Aug 15 05:34:17 CEST 2013


On 13-08-14 2:35 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Footnotes: [1] Has anybody else noticed that both gpg's UI and its 
> documentation seem designed to make it as hard to use as possible?
Not only have people noticed, but " Why Johnny Can't Encrypt: A 
Usability Evaluation of PGP 5.0" is often required reading for computer 
security students at Carleton because it serves as a great example of 
how poor usability can render carefully designed encryption and security 
completely worthless.

" The analysis found a number of user interface design flaws that may 
contribute to security failures, and the user test demonstrated that 
when our test participants were given 90 minutes in which to sign and 
encrypt a message using PGP 5.0, the majority of them were unable to do 
so successfully. "

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.  It's an easy read, 
freely available online, and very educational.  Obviously this is 
especially of interest to those talking about PGP and mailman, but it's 
a good read for anyone who works with code:

https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec99/whitten.html

  Terri



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