  Mapil Overview and Features
  Version 0.2.1

  Mapil is a script designed to help you send and receive PGP encoded
  messages more conveniently.  Here are some highlights:


  o  Full P/MIME Support

     With P/MIME, MIME messages can be encrypted or signed.  For
     instance, you could send an encrypted multipart message, consisting
     of some text and a picture.  The receiver could process the message
     and have the picture displayed automatically.

     P/MIME also defines a better signing syntax, so non-PGP users can
     see the message normally.  P/MIME clear signed messages can also
     contain high bit characters without chance of accidental corruption
     - Mapil can automatically Quotable-Printable encode your message.



  o  Support for PGP 5.0 as well as 2.x

     As of version 0.1, Mapil supports PGP 5.0 and can handle both RSA
     and DH/DSS key types.  PGP 5.0 support is important because the
     Macintosh and Windows versions of PGP 5.0 default to using P/MIME
     for email.  Because the free versions of PGP Inc.'s products do not
     support RSA keys, more and more P/MIME messages will likely be
     signed or encrypted with DH/DSS keys.



  o  Support for interactive or automatic processing

     With the other utilities I have seen, you never get to see your
     message before it is sent.  Perhaps PGP could not find the right
     key, you overlooked something else, or perhaps you just want to
     make sure that the right thing happened.  Mapil allows for
     interactive processing, and will ask you for the correct recipients
     if a key is missing, or will prompt you again for a pass phrase if
     the one you gave was invalid.  Mapil also can be run in batchmode,
     where it will not ask you for input.

     Another possible advantage is that Mapil does not need to be hooked
     into your incoming mail system, so there is no need to be leery
     about changing your whole mail system in order to process a few
     P/MIME messages.  Just install Mapil and run it on whatever PGP
     messages you receive.



  o  Support for a database of PGP message settings

     Mapil supports a 'policies file' where you can tell how messages to
     different people should be handled.  For instance, if you want all
     your messages to foo@bar signed and encrypted, and in P/MIME format
     and all your messages to foo1@bar1 just signed and dumped
     unformatted in the body, Mapil can do this automatically.  You can
     even use regular expressions so all the messages sent to anyone at
     @domain.com will be encrypted only, in P/MIME format, and encrypted
     to key 0x12345678 in addition to the key of the individual
     recipient.




  o  Many configuration options

     Mapil has a slew of configuration options in its configuration
     file, with sensible defaults.  Many of them are accessible through
     command-line options.  You can decide whether you want your
     policies file automatically updated when you send a message,
     whether you want loose, strict, or no QP checking, etc.


  Last modified: Fri Dec 05 18:36:10 1997
























































