Thinking about email security
britneysimpson
Thursday June 29, 2006 (05:00 PM GMT)
By: Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
With the National Security Agency (NSA) monitoring our phone calls, now
might be a good time to think seriously about the security of our email
as well. In particular, you might want to think about encrypting your
email, and about whether it's safe in the hands of third-party
providers like Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft.
For many users, using encryption may seem like overkill, but Michael
Lucas, author of PGP & GPG: Email for the Practical Paranoid , says
that it's good to have the option whether you have something to hide or
not. "It's simply something in my gut that says, 'I want the option to
have privacy,' and I think a lot of people feel the same way."
Lucas's book does a fine job of explaining how to use GNU Privacy Guard
and Pretty Good Privacy. However, using GPG or PGP is an additional
step that many users might balk at having to take.
Even if you're convinced of the need to sign and/or encrypt messages,
how do you bring your correspondents on board? Lucas says that you can
start by just signing messages, and "if you keep at it, people will
eventually start to realize you're serious, that this is important to
you. Some of them will pick up on it, and a number of people you send a
PGP signed message will reply with an encrypted message."
http://business.newsforge.com/business/06/06/14/2123222.shtml?tid=19&tid=78