I seriously hope that this won't be way too off topic for this group, but I seem to have painted myself into a bit of a corner recently on FidoNet. Basically, it all started when someone requested a copy of a ROT-13 extension to a popular Macintosh programmer's editor called BBEdit. Soon after, the discussion was joined by the fatheaded sysops who would bible thump on the FidoNet rules that ROT-13 was encryption and as such it is outlawed on FidoNet. To make a long story shorter, in my plight to enlighten these folks (and the moderator of EchoMac who saw fit to banish me for posting a message encrypted with ROT-13,) I got a bit out of hand and started the usual on the soap-box preeching which included a message inviting everyone to join in the conversation by getting the ROT-13 extension. The rest of that message was "encrypted" by ROT-13. Now since ROT-13 is merely nothing more than A=N, B=M, C=O, D=P... and is fairly standard, I've got it on my head to convince the moderator that ROT-13 is not actually an encryption method. The FidoNet policies state that Fidonet cannot provide any sort of privacy as a measure to protect sysops from taking the heat for the possible illegal activities of users. Clearly, ROT-13 does not provide the least bit of privacy, save from a total computer neophyte. So, the reason I'm writing this here was basically "to go to the experts of encryption," and try to get them to agree with me that ROT-13 has never been a form of encryption because its purpose does not provide privacy. So I'm just asking you to agree with me, and I'll send the results to the moderator in question. If you'd like, mail me the responses directly so we won't clutter cypherpunks further, and I'll forward them myself. If you'd like, the moderator's address on FidoNet is Steve Ebener@1:152/42,FidoNet (this should be reachable via Steve.Ebner@f42.n152.z1.ieee.org) Please don't flame him, I'm trying to unbanish myself off the echo, not get him upset, however the thought of writing a program that sends a cookie to him every twenty minutes did occur, at least until I thought better of it.