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Communications Privacy

How To Enable Mom w/ Encrypted E-Mail? 269

Posted by Cliff from the maintaining-the-illusion dept.
mad.frog asks: "Given the recent revelations of the Bush administration spying on US citizens without warrants -- and their promise to continue doing so -- it's clearly high time for me to switch to encrypted email, after years of being too lazy to bother. The real question is how I can get all (or at least some) of my email contacts to switch as well; clearly, encryption does me no good if the recipient can't decode it. What are my options, and more importantly, what are the options that will be comprehensible and usable by my parents, and in-laws? (Keep in mind that good solutions must include robust Windows and Mac support...)"
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How To Enable Mom w/ Encrypted E-Mail? More

How To Enable Mom w/ Encrypted E-Mail?

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  • Stymie the goons in charge (Score:3, Funny)

    by ratsnapple tea ( 686697 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @12:36AM (#14368831)
    Just sprinkle big, intellectual-ish words like "multilateral," "constitutionally legitimate," and "evolutionary" into your emails. They'll never figure out what you're talking about.

    • Reality Check... (Score:2, Informative)

      by vwjeff ( 709903 )
      The law which enables the President to "spy" has been on the books since 1978. The scope of the law was expanded in 1994 and 1998. The EFF has a great writeup about the law which can be found here [eff.org] There are certain requirements that must be met before a "warrant" is issued by a judge. In reality it is really not a warrant because the person investigated is unaware of the pseudo-warrant. Please read the EFF writeup so you have a better understanding of your rights. Blaming this law on the current admin

      • Re:Reality Check... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by shyster ( 245228 ) <.brackett. .at. .ufl.edu.> on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @12:21AM (#14382184) Homepage

        Has the Bush administration actually invoked FISA as their legal basis? If so, I missed it. And, from what I've heard, it wouldn't fit. AFAIK, FISA requires either a warrant or only monitoring where no US person is likely to be involved (see Q18 in the EFF writeup).

        Carter [fas.org] and Clinton [fas.org] both issued executive orders authorizing FISA monitoring, but specifically quoted FISA regulations to be followed. I haven't seen a similar order from Bush, and even according to legendary conservative Rush Limbaugh, the FISA courts were bypassed. Limbaugh's take on it was that the unprecedented denials and modifications [upi.com] of Bush's FISA requests forced him to go around the process.

        In short, the President is not asserting legal authority under FISA. According to the Attorney General, his authority hinges [washingtonpost.com] (PDF) on his "inherent authority" [washingtontimes.com] as Commander-In-Chief, and Congress's Use of Force Resolution [pbs.org].

        Of course, in my strict interpretation, I missed the part of the Presidential Oath [loc.gov], Constitution [archives.gov] or the above resolution that grants him any power over surveillance. And, according to Daschle (partisan to be sure, but you'd think records of this kind of stuff would be easily checked), Congress specifically rejected [washingtonpost.com] the administration's request for having the resolution cover actions in the US.

        • Re:Reality Check... (Score:3, Informative)

          by Grym ( 725290 )

          Has the Bush administration actually invoked FISA as their legal basis?

          No they have not. Interestingly enough, the FISA court itself became quite alarmed when evidence started to appear in its proceedings which was obtained through the executive order.

          The current justification for the wire-tapping executive order is based upon the War Powers Act. As I understand it, the basic gist of this position is (1) we are at war and (2) any surveillance gathered is therefore military intelligence, exempt from t

    • See my latest journal entry for code to do exactly that sort of thing.

  • One word (Score:4, Funny)

    by CGP314 ( 672613 ) <CGP@ColinGregor y P a lmer.net> on Saturday December 31, 2005 @12:42AM (#14368850) Homepage
    How To Enable Mom w/ Encrypted E-Mail?

    Don't.


    -Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]

  • GPG/PGP: Thunderbird and Enigmail (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dark Coder ( 66759 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @12:44AM (#14368855)
    Checkout Enigmail [mozilla.org] extension.

    Enigmail project [mozdev.org] website features are:

    • Encrypt/sign mail when sending, decrypt/authenticate received mail
    • Support for inline-PGP (RFC 2440) and PGP/MIME (RFC 3156)
    • Per-Account based encryption and signing defaults
    • Per-Recipient rules for automated key selection, and enabling/disabling encryption and signing
    • New: OpenPGP key management interface
    • Automatically encrypt attachments for inline PGP messages
    • Powerful GUI for easy configuration and management
    • User Preferences for advanced configuration
    • Integrated OpenPGP PhotoID Viewer
    • Supports OpenPGP key retrieval via proxy servers
    • Integrates with GnuPG
    • Works with the Mozilla Thunderbird, Mozilla Suite, and Netcape 7.x mail clients
    • Supports Thunderbird's Multiple Identities feature
    • Available for: Windows / Mac OSX / Linux (x86-32, x86-64, SuSe, Debian, Mandrake PPC & x86 ) / UNIX (Solaris 8.0, *BSD i386)
    • Language Packs available for localisation

    Works for me!

    • Re:GPG/PGP: Thunderbird and Enigmail (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anamelech ( 821849 ) <{anamelech} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday December 31, 2005 @12:57AM (#14368905)
      This is the route I took, but trying to convince others that it was worthwhile was another story. Most of the individuals I deal with within my family and friends network use the free, web based email services(most of them hotmail) and can't use encryption/signing to begin with.

      Some free clients have limited support for GPG/PGP, such as gmail through thunderbird. The last time I tried the encrypted attachments, however, they didn't go through quite as expected(Don't remember what the actual effects were, but the cause was a mishandling of the MIME types.)

      As it stands, Thunderbird and Enigmail seems to be the easiest method for sending/receiving encrypted/signed emails, but free services are still a grey area for support. If it handles the MIME type on the encrypted attachments improperly serverside(the basic problem I ran into with Gmail) or they use the web interface regularly, there really isn't much you can do right now.
      • That's why we need more people to just shove the better solutions in peoples faces (though even then it isnt perfect) to get rid of the shit.

        At my university, Every student is given a connectivity CD which configures their computers for the network and installs firefox/thunderbird (even adds putty and an SFTP client). Next year it will also include gaim/adium as they are currently beta-testing a jabber server. If you want to get online when you show up at school, all you have to do is plug the CD in an

        • Wow, a university-wide Jabber server, and open-source software on a university-endorsed CD. What is this technologically-superior university?
          • It would be the University of Chicago.

            Our CS department even offers a course called "Free Software Practicum" [uchicago.edu] and its course description is as follows : Students who are already proficient in programming are provided with the experience of working on real software and the opportunity to collaborate with distributed teams of developers. The course work consists entirely of one or more programming tasks, which must produce freely distributed code. Course work may be chosen from the bug lists and to-do lists

      • GMAIL and Thunderbird/Enigmail (Score:5, Informative)

        by Dark Coder ( 66759 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @03:08AM (#14369268)
        To send email securely over your Google's gmail account, just configure Thunderbird mail account to retrieve gmail email using your Google POP3 account information.

        Thunderbird/Enigmail combo neatly address your privacy issues for both sending and receiving.

        With PGP/GnuPG perfect forward-secrecy protection, you can leave all your emails in your gmail account and not bother to delete them (EVER or until your GnuPG passphrase is compromised).

        Google deux-machination of trying to find AdWords in your email for their massive onslaught of advertisement campaign will come to a screeching halt when your gmail InBox contains nothing but psuedo-random data.

        Good riddance to invasive AdWords into your emails...
      • This is the route I took, but trying to convince others that it was worthwhile was another story.

        Yeah, this is real problem.

        What we really need is for email providers to step up and make encrypted email the default.

        What would it take for this to be built in to Thunderbird default installs in the future, I wonder?
    • Enigmail does not handle HTML.
      • The fact that HTML in email does not work with Enigmail is just fine with me (and it should for 99% of the other encrypted email users).

        99% of email sent to me having HTML encoding is SPAM. About 3% of those emails have embedded URLs directing me to malicious websites trying to probe your computer for vulnerabilities or phish for your personal information.

        The very IDEA of encrypting email with embedded URL DEFIES the privacy concept. Ever hear of 1-bit embedded GIF images? Oh boy, what a great tracking d

        • The problem isn't the HTML per se, it's the half-assed implementation in most mail readers. Rich text in general is a good thing. HTML is a reasonable choice for rich-text. Ther are just two rules for securing HTML mail: Do not display anything not included in the message. Embedded images are okay, but don't fetch <img> links. And donot, under any circumstances, run any scripts of any sort. That's it. Pay attention to those two rules and you get HTML mail that's exactly as secure as plain-text mail

        • I write long reports that need to be formatted.

          Thunderbird can be configured to:

          1) Not open external (not embedded) image files. This is the default.

          2) Not run scripts. This is the default.

          Thunderbird cannot run ActiveX. That gives me perfect safety. Enigmail [mozdev.org] should support what Thunderbird supports.

          Many programmers have very limited in social abilities, so they don't like to or want to communicate. Also, many programmers are, maybe surprisingly, not big users of their computers. They program
      • That seems like an odd limitation.

        Is there any valid technical reason, or do the authors simply think that HTML email is a Bad Idea?

        (I happen to agree with other posters that using "limited" HTML is a reasonable way to achieve email with styled text. Sometimes it's nice to be able to emphasize a point, you know?)
      • Yes it does. Use PGP/MIME.


        The Outlook plugins for PGP and some of the other mail readers out there won't work with it but enigmail to enigmail it works just fine.

    • I think herbivore should be built into thunderbird (and all mail clients, but thunderbird is open source so in theory its more likely )

      http://www.mirrors.wiretapped.net/security/cryptog raphy/apps/mail/herbrip/intro.html [wiretapped.net]

  • I hope you know (Score:5, Informative)

    by missing000 ( 602285 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @12:44AM (#14368858)
    Encrypting your communications like this will just cause you to be a target. The NSA can most likely crack whatever you can throw at them, and even if not they will not hesitate to use some more creative methods if they want to listen in.

    Personally, I just assume that whatever I write or say is being listened to. It sucks, but that's the world we live in. Don't like it? Vote for a non-fascist next time.

    • Can the NSA crack RSA?

      Do we have quantum technology yet?

      No, and no.

      • Re:I hope you know (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rocjoe71 ( 545053 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @01:48AM (#14369053) Homepage
        Can the NSA crack RSA?

        Don't be so sure! I recall about eight years ago it was discovered that GSM's 64-bit encryption keys defaulted the last 16 bits of every key to zero, significantly reducing the amount of processing needed to decrypt GSM transmissions. At the time this was widely suspected as an intentional back-door so GSM would gain approval from the necessary goverments before being deployed.

        All I'm saying is who's to really, really know if a publicly-traded company like RSA can't get "leaned on" by the government to provide the NSA with a back door? In fact, according to Steven Levy in "Crypto" there was the possibility that the original RSA encryption would never see the light of day if users didn't surrender their keys to the government to be held "in escrow", to be made available to law enforcement with the appropriate warrant... These are just 'for examples'.

        Encryption is no panacea and it probably only protects you from the average criminal who tends to prefer easier targets that don't encrypt their data. For these reasons, I just don't see encrypting email as a way of protecting yourself from your own government.

      • Re:I hope you know (Score:5, Informative)

        by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @02:28AM (#14369150) Journal
        Can the NSA crack RSA?

        Well, I know that they appear to know more than what the general cryptography community knows. For example (lifted from wikipedia, emphasis mine):

        During development by IBM in the 1970s, the NSA recommended changes to the (DES) algorithm. There was suspicion the agency had deliberately weakened the algorithm sufficiently to enable it to eavesdrop if required. The suspicions were that a critical component -- the so-called S-boxes -- had been altered to insert a "backdoor"; and that the key length had been reduced, making it easier for the NSA to discover the key using massive computing power.

        However, the public reinvention of the technique known as differential cryptanalysis suggested that one of the changes (to the S-boxes) had actually been suggested to harden the algorithm against this -- then publicly unknown -- method of attack; differential cryptanalysis remained publicly unknown until it was independently reinvented and published some decades later.
      • Can the NSA crack RSA?

        Yes. There are countless times where the US government has cracked an encryption and not told anyone for years, even decades, because otherwise cracking it would be useless. They can't even publicize information encrypted with that method, because then people will figure it out. Assume that any encryption that has been here for over a couple of years has been cracked by the NSA.

        By the way, at the risk of invoking Godwin's law, remember that this is the same mistake made by the Germans

    • Personally, I just assume that whatever I write or say is being listened to. It sucks, but that's the world we live in. Don't like it? Vote for a non-fascist next time.

      Ever see the vote or die episode in south park? I think it summed it up nicely. You have a choice to vote between a giant douche or a turd sandwich. Both are shitty choices, but they're the only choices. Since the system is not perfect you have to find ways to protect your freedom. After all, it's the patriotic thing to do and anyone

    • Encrypting your communications like this will just cause you to be a target. The NSA can most likely crack whatever you can throw at them, and even if not they will not hesitate to use some more creative methods if they want to listen in.

      Each time you encrypt a communication, those tho have no business snooping on you will lose time decrypting it, thus decreasing their general effectiveness. Eventually, when EVERYONE will encrypt their own communications, EVERYONE will be a suspect. Only in communist co

      • yah know, I know what your saying, and there have been some bad so called communist regiemes but...

        I would not say ONLY in communist countries is everyone suspect... there are plenty of brutal places that havn't chosen communism as the rhetoric to justify their inhumanity

        -Steve
    • Don't like it? Vote for a non-fascist next time.

      I did (along with the majority of US voters)... alas, it didn't seem to matter.

  • The best encryption is plain text (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Capt'n Hector ( 650760 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @12:48AM (#14368874)
    I can assure you that in any hypothetical situation in which a government monitors the communications of its citizens, a message whose contents the author has encrypted stands out as interesting and worty of scrutiny in a sea of plain text transmissions. If you're looking to lay low, the best way to do so is to simply blend in.

    • The best plaintext is encryption (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Just Some Guy ( 3352 ) <kirk+slashdot@strauser.com> on Saturday December 31, 2005 @01:07AM (#14368934) Homepage Journal
      If a sizable portion of the population encrypted their email, then it wouldn't stand out, would it? And why do you assume he's wanting to "lay low"? Maybe he just wants to discuss private family business through private channels.

      I'll be darned if I'm going to live my life in fear that some TLA will mistake some perfectly innocent activity for terroristic proclivities. I only have control over my own mind - it's beyond my abilities to make someone else interpret my actions in the way I want.

      So, I'll keep encrypting the emails I send to my friends. I'll also keep locking my door and sealing my envelopes, even though I don't have any secrets the government would be interested in.

      • I'll be darned if I'm going to live my life in fear that some TLA will mistake some perfectly innocent activity for terroristic proclivities.

        Forgive me for adding a hint of rationality to this discussion, but really... Just don't live in fear. Sure, there may be some reprehensible things going on that you should oppose, but you shouldn't be afraid. How many people have been investigated? Give it your best bet. Hundreds perhaps? Divide that by the number of people out there and then compare it to the posibil
        • Nation-states have killed over 1 million people a year for the past 100 years. You are more likely to be imprisioned or killed by a national government than any one else. It's not living in fear, it's living by the light of rational self-interest. I don't sky-dive, I don't have unprotected sex with strangers, I don't play Russian roulette, and I don't let the torturers read my email.

  • Ah... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) *
    So your mom's a drug dealer too, eh?

    • Re:Ah... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The AtomicPunk ( 450829 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @10:01AM (#14370114)
      Terrorist.

      Fighting the drug dealers was the excuse in the 80s. In the 90s it was saving the children. Now it's fighting terrorism. Please, keep up to date on the latest doublespeak - otherwise it's harder for the government to strip us of our rights.

  • Get real! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by fm6 ( 162816 )
    Even assuming that the Feds are snooping on your email to your mother — why do you care? Is the possibility worth the slightest bit of hassle? I suspect that's what your mother will say when you insist that she learn how to email all over again.

  • Can you really beat the NSA? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jgardn ( 539054 ) <jgardn@alumni.washington.edu> on Saturday December 31, 2005 @02:55AM (#14369218) Homepage Journal
    Do you think that the NSA doesn't have ways around the encryption methods you are looking at implementing?

    I understand the math behind it. Keep in mind a few bright Chinese scientists were able to find weaknesses in once stalwart signature technology. The stuff we use today isn't impervious, and we know that there are ways around it. We just don't know for sure how easy it is until someone proves it.

    China's only problem is that they allowed these scientists to publish this. Why the communists didn't bring these guys into their top-secret intelligence org is beyond me. In the US, if a scientist discovered how to thwart similar security measures, they wouldn't be allowed to publish it. They would be instantly whisked away to the NSA secret HQ to work on similar problems for untold amounts of cash.

    Which brings an interesting thought: How smart are the people who work at NSA, and how much can they crack? How do these people's intelligences and knowledge compare to the rest of the world, at least, the public world? We'll never know for sure unless we get a job working there as a scientist who has to develop new methods of cracking encryptions. And then we wouldn't be allowed to tell anyone. So the public will never know for sure, and can never know for sure.

    In short, the encryption race can't be won with the US government, any more than you could win a nuclear arms race. You can go ahead and compete with nosy neighbors and competitors, and perhaps even 2nd or 3rd world foreign intelligence, but I strongly doubt that you'll be secure from the prying eyes of any administration of any of our allies. Besides, this is one area where our government has spent and will spend the required resources to ensure they are #1, just like the arms race was.

    And remember, in security, the question is, "How secure do you really need to be, and how much are you willing to pay for it?" In the end, is your grandmother really that worried about some administration official reading her super-secret brownie recipe that she passes on to her friends? What will she say that could possibly alarm them? How secure will the recipients of her messages keep those messages? What's the point of being secure if you can't secure both ends of the conversation?

  • Ciphire (Score:2, Informative)

    by Custard ( 45810 )
    Anyone know about Ciphire?

    https://www.ciphire.com/ [ciphire.com]
    • sorry BZZT -- a "central Ciphire certificate directory"... wtf

      like all public key systems, the problem is with the key distribution. they tend to brush over this...

  • Really Simple... (Score:3, Funny)

    by kilocomp ( 234607 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @04:41AM (#14369503)
    Just go up stairs and tell her what you would have written in the email.

  • Kmail and Thunderbird (Score:3, Interesting)

    by realnowhereman ( 263389 ) <andyparkins@nOsPam.gmail.com> on Saturday December 31, 2005 @06:08AM (#14369666)
    I've set my whole family to use encryption and signatures using either KMail or Thunderbird. The setting up is the hard bit, and I don't think any of them really understand what the difference between signing and encrypting is, what a public or private key is. That doesn't matter though. If it's possible to encrypt (i.e. the key for the recipient is in the keyring) then both Kmail and Thunderbird automatically do so.

    The only thing any of them notice is that ocassionally they have to enter their password again.

    I have to say though that when Kmail popped up a message that was all in red to indicate that a signature was invalid, everyone loved it (it wasn't sinister, MS Exchange mangles certain messages).

    Being sure that your email wasn't read, nor was it tampered with is a great feeling. Nothing any of us say to each other is, in theory, worth protecting in this way; however, it's now perfectly safe for them to send, say a home address or a telephone number or any other personal information in the knowledge that it hasn't been read. It's not national security stuff, it's just privacy. You're not protecting against government snooping, you're protecting against random snooping by some bored mail server operator.

    I'd argue that if the government wanted to spy on me, they'd find it very dull, but wouldn't be thwated by the fact that I encrypt my emails.

  • Two things come to mind... (Score:3, Funny)

    by HavokDevNull ( 99801 ) <ericNO@SPAMlinuxsystems.net> on Saturday December 31, 2005 @06:12AM (#14369669) Homepage Journal


    1. What are you trying to hide?

    2. Tell me where Osama Bin Laden is

    .

  • PGP (Score:3, Informative)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @09:49AM (#14370090) Homepage
    The commercial version of PGP (PGP Desktop) supports the Macintosh and Windows. It will automatically sign and encrypt email.

  • If changing the mail client isn't an option (Score:3, Informative)

    by Curmudgeonlyoldbloke ( 850482 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @09:59AM (#14370111)
    How about WinPT ("Windows Privacy Tray") for your Windows relatives? It front-ends gpg with something that sits in the system tray. Can encrypt from the clipboard or the foreground window.
  • The most commonly used packages were cracked by the NSA years ago. If they really want to brute force it they can. The only secure ways are one time pads or coming up with your own secret method that they haven't encountered before. But then it would be hard to get your friends to use it.

    Double encription, using two schemes is also about as useful as rot-13. They've already thought that far ahead.

  • First, get everyone using a mail client that supports S/MIME. Thunderbird works, as does Apple Mail.

    Then, use S/MIME.

  • The best reason ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The AtomicPunk ( 450829 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @11:52AM (#14370431)
    ... to get more people using encryption is because it will make it that much more difficult for them to ban it later.

    To all the "you don't need encryption unless you have something to hide" people. Wow. I'm truly astounded by those people who have failed to learn anything from history.

  • Switching to all-encrypted email will attract attention, and result in closer scrutiny to who you communicate with.

    For typical criminal cases, obtaining wiretaps isn't always practical -- but obtaining phone records is trivial. If you have a pattern established of communicating with someone who is a criminal or terrorist figure (even without your knowledge), your encrypted communications suddenly become damning.
  • You can get a free personal certificate from Thawte that works great. Once you've setup your account with them, you can create a signature for each email address you use. On the Mac side, you just download the certificate, and the Mac takes care of automatically installing it. Mail will also detect the certificates you install, and you'll see sign and encrypt (provided you have the recipients public key) buttons when you compose new messages. Here's a tutorial on getting it up and running with Mail:

    http://j [joar.com]

  • Go High Tech (Score:4, Funny)

    by DynaSoar ( 714234 ) * on Saturday December 31, 2005 @02:42PM (#14371150) Journal
    Develop an encryption table that produces shapes similar to the screen characters created by the ASCII characters you want to transmit*.

    Obtain a molecular transfer device that puts a dark material on semi-permiable surfaces, such as the paper you use in your printer.

    Encode your message by placing dark marks on the paper. Seal it in an opaque layer of similar material and encode the physical address of the recipient on the outside.

    You can then purchase a government document (for less than the cost of a cup of cofee, or of supporting a third world waif for a day) from a government agency tasked with transfering such encrypted information, afix it to the outside of the "envelope", and trick the 3\/1L goobermint into delivering your secret message for you.

    If you REALLY want to be certain of your security, you can seal the "envelope" with the semi-transparent film developed by the security firm "3-M". The adhesive on one side of the film prevents unauthorized opening.

    Of course this is all for naught due to the CIA's "remote viewers" unless you remain in motion. So when you're encrypting/molecular transfering, it's important to run around in circles so they can't focus on you. A tin foil hat won't actually help, but wearing one while running in circles will prevent those around you from asking pesky questions. Remember: shiny side out, otherwise a feedback loop can occur and cause dain bramage.

    * As an alternative, entirely graphical representations can be developed. Pictures created with polychromatic, wax-based molecular transfer devices are especially attactive to moms, who tend to archive them on the outside of their refrigerator.
  • If the feds or any other government agency could really interpret what "IS" really meant when my bro says "Christmas is at Aunt Bertha's next year, the kids can't wait, it will be fun for all." --- Translation: "Shit! crazy Aunt Bertha and her big, smelly dogs are hosting christmas this year, we all have to go kids included, that means cousin Steve's terror tribe will be there too, that's gonna suck!"
    So you can see that family sarcasm can easily eliminate the need for encryption.

  • Don't bother trying to encrypt the message. Encrypt the delivery channels.

    Give your Mom an account on your server where you have postfix set to opportunistically encrypt, your IMAP daemon to use SSL (courier, cyrus, etc) and require SASL on STARTTLS connections for outgoing e-mail (postfix again).

    This way, large numbers of users of users can have their wire-level communications encrypted without requiring the users to do much work. For example, if/when AOL starts accepting SSL at the MTA level (and they e

  • Simple solution (Score:3, Funny)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) * on Sunday January 01, 2006 @01:40PM (#14374758) Homepage Journal
    ...encryption does me no good if the recipient can't decode it.

    Simply included an encrypted and plaintext version in every email; problem solved!

  • So sad and pathetic.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by (-hrair-) ( 942503 ) <hrair@outgun.com> on Monday January 02, 2006 @02:31AM (#14377211)
    this depresses me deeply, but the truth is none of our information is private anymore. I will continue to encrypt everything I write to someone who uses pgp or gpg. Perhaps I will even flood the web with thousands of encrypted e-mail stating what time to meet for lunch and then one will have something important in it. That will at least make them mad after brute-forcing through a thousand pointless e-mails. Encrypt everything, even though they can probably decrypt it because they're likely nosy and they have the cash for the computing power. This will one day be resolved as we start using thirty increasingly complicated encryption methods stacked up on each other for all our messages.


    Freedom of Speech does not imply the Freedom to Hear whatever is said!



    (-hrair-)

  • no real point (Score:3, Funny)

    by theonetruekeebler ( 60888 ) on Tuesday January 03, 2006 @12:12PM (#14384754) Homepage Journal
    Gene Spafford made a good analogy:
    Using encryption on the Internet is equivalent of arranging an armored car to deliver credit card information from someone living in a cardboard box to someone living on a park bench.
    In other words, it makes no difference how well she encrypted her last e-mail to you when I've already installed a keystroke logger on her machine---and yours.

  • Get someone to fix Mozilla bug 135636 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LordNimon ( 85072 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @12:09PM (#14392560)
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13563 6 [mozilla.org].

    This bug says that Mozilla (aka Seamonkey) should implement the "encrypt when possible" feature. That is, if the email client has the public key of all recipients, then the email should be automatically encrypted. If this feature were implemented in Seamonkey and Thunderbird, it would do wonders for increasing the usage of encryption. All you would need to do then is get a private/public key for everyone you know, and then all email will be automatically encrypted. Your mom wouldn't even know it was happening.

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