TCQ ascii version

[Bill Frantz]

At 05:49 PM 10/14/98 +0100, Frank O'Dwyer wrote:
>"Bill Frantz (by way of Mark S. Miller )" wrote:
>> [E folk, this looks like it'd be a cool application of E.
>> Frank, you say
>> 
>>         ... MozPL ... licence). If you can contribute ideas, or code
>>         on those terms, you are welcome to.
>> 
>> Well, have we got open sourced ideas and code for you.  Please check out
>> "http://www.erights.org".
>> 
>>         Enjoy,
>>         --MarkM]
>
>Thanks, I have seen E mentioned before on various lists and I also took
>a quick look at the binary distribution. I have only skimmed the
>documentation so far, but I had already planned to go through it and see
>what pieces I could use. My hunch was that it might provide a scripting
>component (I believe I saw 'scheme-like' mentioned), some crypto pieces
>(e.g. SecureRandom), and the security services may even apply directly
>to the problem. Haven't got the source kit yet but I plan to. How do you
>feel that E would apply best here and what are the best document(s) to
>start reading in order to get an overview of E?
>
>Can you tell me if it is possible to apply E in a messaging application
>(i.e. when communicating parties may have an online connection or only a
>unidirectional store-and-forward connection such as email)? What kind of
>security services does E provide? Can it support anonymity,
>repudiability, PFS, etc? Also, I assume that some crypto pieces are
>missing so that you can export this? If so, is it much work to bring it
>back up to full strength.

E currently only directly supports messaging applications.  It supports
communications privacy with 3DES, authentication with DSS and a HMAC, and
PFS.  It naturally supports pseudoanonymity with persistent reputation via
a DSS key in the style of SPKI (but without certificates).  If "true"
anonymity is desired, each connection can use a different public/private
key pair.  (Generating such keys if reasonably fast with DSS.)  The export
controlled pieces are contained in the Cryptix Java library.

For information about the low level communications in E see:
<http://erights.org/doc/to-be-sorted/DataComm_startup.html> and
<http://erights.org/doc/to-be-sorted/NewECommSystem.html>

The startup document has information on the detailed line protocol.