PGPMenu Motivation

Derek Atkins

<warlord@MIT.EDU> PGPMenu was written because PGP is too difficult to use for novice users. The normal PGP interface involes memorizing a lot of options and flags, setting variables, remembering passphrases, and just remembering the syntax for every possible command in PGP. The idea behind PGPMenu was to try to implement a simple, easy-to-use Menu-based interface to PGP, to simplify the problem for users.

People don't use PGP. Some reasons include:

PGP is hard to use by novice users
- Too many options that are hard to remember
- Non-intuitive key management
- Not easily integrated with other programs
Users don't use PGP because of the difficulty to use it
People don't care about security or privacy
People are lazy; they will circumvent security if it makes their lives easier.