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14. Address book

Adding the extra encryption commands is not difficult, but it can be tedious and potentially error prone. Thus, premail provides an address book for specifying commands to be used with specific e-mail addresses.

For example, let's say that one of your correspondents tells you that she prefers mail to be PGP encrypted. Then, instead of typing ((encrypt-pgp)) every time you send her mail, you could add this line to your addresses file:

her@email.address: ((encrypt-pgp))

The addresses file is usually at ~/.premail/addresses, but the location is a configurable option.

Another example is the hackerpunks mailing list, in which all of the subscribers have alpha.c2.org nyms. Since haqr@alpha.c2.org has this line in his addresses file, he is able to post to the list with just ``To: hpunks'':

hpunks: hackerpunks@alpha.c2.org ((chain=2;alpha=haqr))

An address book entry can also expand to a list of addresses. For example:

alice: alice@crypto.com ((encrypt-pgp))
bob: bwhite@got.net ((key=bobw@netcom.com))
eric: eric@ecsl.org ((encrypt-pgp))

friends: alice, bob, eric

Sending mail to friends would then do what you'd expect: send encrypted mail to each of alice, bob, and eric's full e-mail addresses.


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