mail encryption/decryption

[WALDEN]

> Is is possible to use crypt with mail?  THe experience I've had says no.
> Our guru has gone off to greener pastures.
> 
>  john salmi    {ihnp4,mgnetp}!dicomed!john
>  dicomed corp
>  minneapolis
> 

 You cannot directly mail encrypt files. Mail(1) (AT&T's at least) will
strip out all NUL characters before sending mail. So if crypt(1) generates
any NULs the person receiving that mail will not be able to decrypt it
correctly even with the correct key.

You'll have to write two programs: One to replace NULs with someother character
sequence before mailing.  And another that puts the NULs back in to the file
after reading that sequence.   The same goes if you want to mail cpio(1) type
files.

	Brian Walden
	AT&T-Bell Labs
	...!ihnp4!whuts!bsw