Ok!So, lots of us use PGP. We can intuitively guess that not as many people do, as should. Some posts have also got me thinking that many of the people who don't, know they should know better... That is: there is a wee bit of a psychological hurdle for using PGP even for non-newbs.It's not that they don't care or that they are stupid, it's that they dilly dally because they are not 'prompted' at the appropriate moments. This is similar to how people know they should use secure passwords, but even geeks use terrible passwords for security all the time because although people are smart, they are not necessarily also patient.Using Encryption is the equivalent of a safety belt when driving. It is extremely easy when you are in the habit of it, but like I said, there is this barrier.So I would like to propose two things.1. When you send a message on the Silk Road, there ought to be a line of text between the subject line and text box for your message that reads something like:"Use PGP encryption to protect your security where possible."This text should be in red, slightly larger font e.g. if 10pt is the default, then use 11pt for the warning, and in bold. The words 'PGP encryption' could be a hyperlink to a short PGP tutorial for windows/mac etc.It sounds very simple, blatantly obvious like a red stop light at a junction, but I'm sure that this would have an immediate impact on the number of customers taking their message security seriously.On a related but separate issue I would also like to see consumers being given visual recognition for using PGP security. e.g. some manner of visual signifier like a badge/tag, similar to how ebay uses colored stars for its users, so everybody knows user X is part of the 'PGP Club' (suggest a little golden lock icon like SSL).--2. The next idea is more of a community affair, PGP Club! Woot!Basically, we have long standing members of the forum volunteer a little of their time to helping those shy doe eyed newbs (so cute!) graduate to being members of the PGP Club (instantaneously transmorphed into those austere greybeards, the cyptroanarchist cyberelite intelligentsia! Yes!).I think this is not actually just about security and hi-tech geekry, but also identity.Traditionally, drug dealers and smugglers have had various rites of passage, most famously the Sicilian Mafia involving candles, blood, knives yadayada craziness.However, all those rites of passage are ethnocentric anachronisms. We need something new that befits the spirit of our collective enterprise.Today, we live in a globalized world filled with hi-tech gadgetry being the norm. Our business is less like the hierarchical structure of traditional organized crime, and more like that of transnational corporations, composed of many fluid and dynamic relationships, the nature of the business and the people involved flip on a dime. This makes it important for our customers to recognize certain signals (e.g. the infamous shoe tied to a telephone pole in RL being a classic example) or to adopt certain behaviors.So, it is befitting that PGP is seen as 'cool', 'wicked' by SR customers. It makes it easier to 'plug' them into the market on the fly as it were. I'm trying to say this is broader than SR, that we're cultivating an anonymous e-market of PGP-aware people generally but that it starts in earnest here if it is to start anywhere proper. Remember, anonymity loves company, the larger the set...Once consumers are able to use PGP fluently, they are able to use PGP forever, it is a cognitive equivalent of a lump sum investment paying compound interest over time. The simple act of knowing how to encrypt and decrypt is a tremendous blow to law enforcement, it creates a resilient consumer base to bounce our market back whenever it will come under attack. In practice this means some of our geek comrades have to leap from their laurels and repeatedly answer the same questions again, and again, and again in the PGP threads I hope to see. The message that you're not one of the cool kids unless you join PGP Club has got to get out there. People who don't use PGP need to be bullied (in a friendly big bro/sis way) to join the Hive and new customers who use PGP or want to use it need to be given encouragement, a virtual slap on the back in an altogether more consistent fashion.Forthwith, pine will be setting up a "PGP Club" in the General Board (to prevent potential escapees overlooking the Security subforum). Here I'll help anybody who wants to learn PGP basics. I also encourage cryptographically inclined SRers join me in that or similar threads.The principal should be, that if you learn PGP, you pass it on to the next fellow. It's like the rifle quota at Stalingrad, but much more important.In particular, if you are a vendor, then throw your deluded plaintext users our way to the PGP Club so they can be cool again :)To the Barricades!PineLink to the Cryptographic Revolution: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=30938.new#new