On 2/2/19, Thomas D Dial <td...@acm.org> wrote: > I noticed this a few weeks or a month ago and took it to be a somewhat > inelegant, maybe incompletely implemented, feature intended to improve > metadata security. I believe "Encrypted message" also becomes the > subject of the transmitted message. > > Exposure of the metadata showing who is in contact with whom, and when, > is pretty much inescapable, but the subject line, which is not > encrypted, also can provide useful information to an eavesdropper, even > if she cannot decrypt the message body. This is noted in some PGP or GPG > documentation I have seen, accompanied by recommendations to obscure the > Subject: line and put the true subject within the body.
That's what I was thinking as I read this thread. That's a perfect spot for it... right at the top of the email's main content/body where it then sits ready for a quick copy-cut-paste when the time's appropriate. It would be like how at least some of us temporarily save intended recipient email addresses in that same spot while saving draft email copies. That's an old netiquette type trick so that things fail in the event we accidentally click "Send" instead of "Save Draft" or their equivalents across email clients. :) That part I read about how subject lines all look the same once encrypted > GACK! It sounds like there's room for a wishlist bug report about an option to somehow save a tickler of a reminder instead of the real subject. A key as to the meaning of that tickler could then be saved elsewhere, e.g. as a handwritten note, in the same way passwords are occasionally saved on scraps of paper scattered everywhere. :) Cindy :) -- Cindy-Sue Causey Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA * runs with birdseed *