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The Telecom Digest for February 02, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 29 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:


Re: Let's talk about privacy(John Mayson)


Re: Let's talk about privacy(David Clayton)


Re: Let's talk about privacy(John Mayson)


Re: Let's talk about privacy(Fred Atkinson)


Re: Let's talk about privacy(Garrett Wollman)






====== 29 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 08:42:49 -0600
From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Let's talk about privacy 
Message-ID: <AANLkTinex8WYZ=o5yQnwG-7FSt4QFTGW4PrPqvTJ1m5Z@mail.gmail.com>

I used to be very paranoid about this.  I downloaded all email to my
computer, deleted the copies from the server, and even created
encrypted backups.

I finally rationalized this fear away.  Just because I'm doing this
doesn't mean the friend I correspond with all the time is.  Email is
easily intercepted and for all I know there's a folder on an FBI hard
drive with my name on it full of email.  And lastly, while this logic
makes privacy advocates cringe: I'm not doing anything wrong.  I don't
do anything online that I wouldn't want my wife, kids, or parents
knowing about.

I live pretty openly in cyberspace.  You can find all about me at
http://johnmayson.com.

-- 
John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
Austin, Texas, USA




Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:01:14 +1100
From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Let's talk about privacy 
Message-ID: <pan.2011.02.01.08.01.10.737069@myrealbox.com>

On Tue, 01 Feb 2011 05:07:07 +0000, Garrett Wollman wrote:
.........
> What I haven't done, and should, is configure opportunistic encryption on
> the mail server -- as it stands, the bad cops will just tap my ISP.
>
Whatever happened to the push to have everyone using PGP keys and having
their e-mail encrypted?

That seemed to be pushing along quite nicely about a dozen years ago and
once you get it sorted out it is quite easy to use with most e-mail
clients these days.

It would certainly add in a massive increase in protection of any e-mail
contents as it would still take anyone a lot of processing power to
decode messages encrypted with the currently available methods.

--
Regards, David.

David Clayton
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a
measure of how many questions you have.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Yes, encryption - i.e., Public Key Infrastructure, or "PKI"-based
encryption, was going well around Y2K. I was a Thawte Notary, and
would certify applicants' ID's for personal email certificates.

It all sort of died, and I don't know why. Perhaps users were so leary
of the "black magic" of PKI, or of disclosing their identity details
to an unfamiliar company in order to use PKI, that they felt it was
better to have an unsecure email (which they could deny sending),
rather than a secure email (which a recipient could prove they had
sent).

PKI will come back eventually, although it will almost certainly be
via X.509 certificates managed through the existing commercial
companies such as Verisign. I predict the public will trust bankers as
"neutral third parties" to verify identities - after all, they already
have all the information - and that the need to secure electronic
commerce will be the driving force. The only question is when: either
there will be a major meltdown of the electronic banking system, with
attendent loses, or various governments will demand that all
electronic communication be traceable to a person at its origin.

Bill Horne
Moderator




Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 12:53:43 -0600
From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Let's talk about privacy 
Message-ID: <AANLkTi=jcZG9tecN7zes+tW9GMOhGyXfjeQk0ZZ5fVL=@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 2:01 AM, David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Whatever happened to the push to have everyone using PGP keys and having
> their e-mail encrypted?
>
> That seemed to be pushing along quite nicely about a dozen years ago and
> once you get it sorted out it is quite easy to use with most e-mail
> clients these days.
>
> It would certainly add in a massive increase in protection of any e-mail
> contents as it would still take anyone a lot of processing power to
> decode messages encrypted with the currently available methods.

In the mid-90s I discovered PGP.  I started using it.  Wow.  First
problem was it was like playing volleyball by myself.  When no one
else uses it, it's sort of pointless.  But secondly all it did was
raise eyebrows.  This was the era of the first WTC bombing, Waco, Ruby
Ridge, and Oklahoma City.  "Why is John suddenly so interested in
encrypting his email?".

I dropped it, but started using GnuPG around the turn of the century,
just in time for the next WTC disaster.  And I had the same problem.
No one play encryption with and it was just raising eyebrows.

The final nail in the coffin was when I switched to Gmail.  I can use
an email client and use GnuPG that way.  And there are browser
plug-ins that support it with webmail.  But since few do it I figure
why bother.

IMHO, all email should be signed and encrypted, but I'm sort of weird that way.

John

-- 
John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
Austin, Texas, USA




Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 13:21:42 -0700
From: fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Let's talk about privacy 
Message-ID: <716d5ff302558588cfec58b77a000a3d.squirrel@webmail.mishmash.com>

> On Tue, 01 Feb 2011 05:07:07 +0000, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> .........
>> What I haven't done, and should, is configure opportunistic encryption
>> on
>> the mail server -- as it stands, the bad cops will just tap my ISP.
>>
> Whatever happened to the push to have everyone using PGP keys and having
> their e-mail encrypted?
>
> That seemed to be pushing along quite nicely about a dozen years ago and
> once you get it sorted out it is quite easy to use with most e-mail
> clients these days.
>
> It would certainly add in a massive increase in protection of any e-mail
> contents as it would still take anyone a lot of processing power to
> decode messages encrypted with the currently available methods.
>
> --
> Regards, David.
>
> David Clayton
> Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
> Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a
> measure of how many questions you have.
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> Yes, encryption - i.e., Public Key Infrastructure, or "PKI"-based
> encryption, was going well around Y2K. I was a Thawte Notary, and
> would certify applicants' ID's for personal email certificates.
>
> It all sort of died, and I don't know why. Perhaps users were so leary
> of the "black magic" of PKI, or of disclosing their identity details
> to an unfamiliar company in order to use PKI, that they felt it was
> better to have an unsecure email (which they could deny sending),
> rather than a secure email (which a recipient could prove they had
> sent).
>
> PKI will come back eventually, although it will almost certainly be
> via X.509 certificates managed through the existing commercial
> companies such as Verisign. I predict the public will trust bankers as
> "neutral third parties" to verify identities - after all, they already
> have all the information - and that the need to secure electronic
> commerce will be the driving force. The only question is when: either
> there will be a major meltdown of the electronic banking system, with
> attendent loses, or various governments will demand that all
> electronic communication be traceable to a person at its origin.
>
> Bill Horne
> Moderator

     I don't understand why.

     After I completed my graduate studies at Hopkins (in my Network
Security course, I wrote a paper about the use of PGP), I put
together a PGP course for the CPCUG (Capital PC Users Group) in
Washington, DC some years back.  I was getting excellent ratings on
it from my students.  One of them wrote a blurb in the CPCUG Monitor
about how easy it was to use PGP after completing my course.

     The first turnout for it had engineering people, LAN people,
mathematicians, and someone from Amnesty International.

     The attendance at the subsequent seminars were much lower.

     Finally, there was no more demand for it.  So the course died a
natural death although I've used the slides I developed for the
course when I've done presentations on PGP.

     It was disappointing.

                                        Fred

***** Moderator's Note *****

I'm tempted to say that PGP/GPG is too difficult for non-techies to
use, but X.509 PKI didn't fare any better, and that capability is
already built-in to every common email client.

We need a Psychologist: there must be some subtle problem with users'
perceptions of encryption that scares them away from it. Perhaps users
are scared of admitting that they don't understand their expensive
computers as well as they like to think, or maybe they're reluctant to
ask those at the other end of the link to educate themselves in order
to decrypt the emails.

Come to think of it, I'm amazed that the U.S. Government didn't make
digital signatures mandatory after 9/11: it would have made all
emails traceable to at least some level of "identity" verification,
and could have eliminated spam in the bargain. Of course, digital
signatures use the same process as digital encryption, and maybe Uncle
Sam was afraid of repeating the "Clipper chip" debacle.

Bill Horne
Moderator




Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 19:05:40 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Let's talk about privacy 
Message-ID: <ii9li4$io$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>

In article <pan.2011.02.01.08.01.10.737069@myrealbox.com>,
David Clayton  <dcstar@myrealbox.com> wrote:

>Yes, encryption - i.e., Public Key Infrastructure, or "PKI"-based
>encryption, was going well around Y2K. I was a Thawte Notary, and
>would certify applicants' ID's for personal email certificates.

PGP has always been much more popular than X.509-based systems (which
isn't saying much).

>PKI will come back eventually, although it will almost certainly be
>via X.509 certificates managed through the existing commercial
>companies such as Verisign.

Almost certainly not.  People might use X.509 certificates, but they
will be self-signed (from X.509's perspective) with the actual
authentication taking place through the DNS.  DNSsec is here today for
many top-level domains, and will be universal soon; it solves most of
the problems that X.509 creates, including the VeriSlime
(near-)monopoly.

-GAWollman
-- 
Garrett A. Wollman    | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers.         | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993





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