Even if google does implement this, where is everyone going to get a shiny new PGP key from? Is google going to create it? Is the user going to create it? How about linking it in to the web of trust. Who is going to go around teaching all the users how to securely verify each other's keys, so that the public key part of the system isn't a complete and utter waste of time?

Don't get me wrong, I would love it if loads more people were to get a PGP key and enter the PGP web of trust (like, say, paypal). It's just that over the last ten or so years, I have found remarkably few people who both have a PGP key, and care about it.

I guess I'm going to err on the side of hope, so for me it seems wired does have some sort of inside information. Not very much, apparently.

But a pre-product announcement from Google doesn't mean much, since they work on so many products. If they do decide to push it to "beta" (ha ha) I'll happily use it.

Either way, I would hope public key crypto does become more mainstream, especially in email.