On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 22:06 -0800, Bob La Quey wrote: > I should _not_ waste my efforts caring about those things that do > not matter though, such as the absolute fact that many forms of > email are inherently insecure. If I care about my security I will have > alternatives to the insecure methods.
The problem is that John Q. Public has a reasonable expectation of privacy when sending an e-mail. Remember that most people that use computers know next to nothing about the technology or any other mechanisms behind them. They do have an expectation that the only person that is going to be reading that e-mail is the person(s) it's sent to (with the exception of those that are sent within a company with a policy that all e-mail is subject to being monitored). Reading an e-mail not addressed to you is not as trivial as reading a post card that is not addressed to you. To read the e-mail, one must be at the ISP, or connected to one of the data lines transferring the e-mail from point A to point B. Then, it must be extracted from all the other data on the line (or in the server). Then it must be decoded. One can't simple pick it up and look at it. To summarize, there is a reasonable expectation of privacy and that is covered under the 4th Amendment. The US Government is currently attempting to enact a law allowing them to intercept *all* e-mail without a warrant. A move like this is only a first step. It's the first step down a slippery slope. The reason we have lost many of the freedoms we have within the last 8 years (and any freedoms we've lost since the Constitution was signed into law) is because people didn't care. It didn't affect them at the time, so they ignored it (others just don't pay attention to anything). Our forefathers knew that keeping our freedom would be a continuous fight at all levels and on all fronts, forever, and that even the smallest attack on the most insignificant freedom is a huge step toward the complete elimination of all freedoms. > > Even a brief survey of the history of spycraft will provide you with > many ways of sustaining secure communications in the face of > very real oppression. > It is not reasonable to expect the populous as a whole to be aware of these. It is a reasonable expectation that the populous can enjoy privacy from government and others as they go about their normal lives and daily activities. PGA -- Paul G. Allen BSIT/SE Owner/Sr. Engineer Random Logic Consulting www.randomlogic.com -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
