encrypting email conversations

[PJ White]

Do you have a public encryption key?

If someone contacted you out of the blue and asked for it, would you send it?

I only ask because that's how a stranger (who turned out to be Edward Snowden) approached a documentary film maker. He's reported now as saying that he thinks "unencrypted journalist-source communication is unforgivably reckless."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/snowden-maass-transcript.html

Leaving aside the disappointing fact that no one is ever going to contact me with the leak of the millisecond (never mind the millenium), I can't help being curious about this. I remember getting a PGP key years ago, but only used it a couple of times before paranoia wore off.  Does anyone else regularly encrypt stuff? Do businesses use it for sensitive email? If not, why not? Was Paul McMullan right when he said "Privacy is for paedos"?

I had a feeling that using encryption might draw attention to yourself in a way that is counter-helpful. And if asked by plod for your key you'd be committing an offence by refusing.

Any thoughts?

PJ

[Ben Tudor]

Encrypted email attracts attention when organisations like the NSA use pattern recognition, frequency analysis and social network theory to find individuals of interest. Do you talk to shady Islamist types, or even your local amazing private cab operator (who, if you live in my town, is Mohammed, who also worships at the mosque in the street I used to live in)? Do you use a PGP public key occasionally? Read about the Middle East a lot? That's three points for starters.

The whole idea behind PGP was that if everyone encrypted mail as a matter of course, then everyone would be safe(r). If ony a few individuals do it, it just flags up their activities as being of possible interest. 

The argument goes, too, by the way, that brute forcing PGP at the default settings is entirely possible and was a fairly trivial matter up to a decade ago. Assuming, of course, that quantum computing hasn't made a mockery of it already. And quantum computing is a whole' nother discussion about cats, boxes, padlocks and waves. 

You can buy fancy boxes that do quantum computing stuff on the open market, by the way. the real stretch seems to be understanding what to put in or take out of it.

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[PJ White]

On 13/08/2013 21:46, Ben Tudor wrote:
> Encrypted email attracts attention when organisations like the NSA use
> pattern recognition, frequency analysis and social network theory to
> find individuals of interest. Do you talk to shady Islamist types, or
> even your local amazing private cab operator (who, if you live in my
> town, is Mohammed, who also worships at the mosque in the street I
> used to live in)? Do you use a PGP public key occasionally? Read about
> the Middle East a lot? That's three points for starters.
>
> The whole idea behind PGP was that if everyone encrypted mail as a
> matter of course, then everyone would be safe(r). If ony a few
> individuals do it, it just flags up their activities as being of
> possible interest.
>

Thanks Ben. Fascinating stuff.

I've just been reminding myself about encryption. I'd forgotten the
legal problems PGP's originator had - being investigated for exporting
munitions without a licence.

You don't happen to know of a paperback book that explains everything an
interested reader with short attention span needs to know about
cyberwarfare, do you?

PJ

[Ben Tudor]

The Code Book - Simon Singh (yes, that Simon Singh)

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[PJ White]

Marvellous, thank you. I've been reading recently about the death of Christopher Marlowe - Elizabethan poet & playwright. Some serious spy network that Walsingham had. Been going on a long time...

PJ

On 14/08/2013 09:01, Ben Tudor wrote:

The Code Book - Simon Singh (yes, that Simon Singh)

On 14 Aug 2013 08:21, "PJ White" <pjwhi...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 13/08/2013 21:46, Ben Tudor wrote:

Encrypted email attracts attention when organisations like the NSA use pattern recognition, frequency analysis and social network theory to find individuals of interest. Do you talk to shady Islamist types, or even your local amazing private cab operator (who, if you live in my town, is Mohammed, who also worships at the mosque in the street I used to live in)? Do you use a PGP public key occasionally? Read about the Middle East a lot? That's three points for starters.

The whole idea behind PGP was that if everyone encrypted mail as a matter of course, then everyone would be safe(r). If ony a few individuals do it, it just flags up their activities as being of possible interest.

Thanks Ben. Fascinating stuff.

I've just been reminding myself about encryption. I'd forgotten the legal problems PGP's originator had - being investigated for exporting munitions without a licence.

You don't happen to know of a paperback book that explains everything an interested reader with short attention span needs to know about cyberwarfare, do you?

PJ

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[Chris Wheal]

Come and visit. Marlowe's unmarked grave is "marked" by a plaque on the wall of St Nick's church in Deptford - famous for the gargoyles that prompted the Skull and Crossbones of the priorate's flag and has the grave of George Shelvocke whose book prompted the poem the Ancient Mariner.

Chris Wheal
t: +44 20 8694 9412
m: +44 7831 268261

[PJ White]

Sounds good. I do like a nice gargoyle. Though with all the treachery, double-dealing and smoke and mirrors around spooks I no longer trust anything anyone says about Marlowe. He probably survived and wrote everything the Earl of Oxford is credited with.

PJ

[Chris Wheal]

There is, they say, only one memorial in Westminster Abbey that has a question mark on it - and it is to Christopher Marlowe. I became quite fascinated by him a few years back and ended up reading lots of his so work as well as reading about him. I can post you some books if you like.

Chris Wheal
t: +44 20 8694 9412
m: +44 7831 268261

[PJ White]

That's very kind. I'm part way through Charles Nicholl's the Reckoning - which in the first few pages demolished everything I had in my head about his death - it wasn't a tavern, it wasn't a brawl, it wasn't in London.

I'm also getting into the other characters. Thos Kyd seems a charmer and I picked up his Spanish Tragedy which I haven't read since university. I read all Marlowe's plays then - and once acted (minor part) in Dr Faustus. Love it.

Don't send me any books - I'm useless at borrowing. But do send me recommendations. I know you read Shapiro's Contested Will, so I thought you'd like the de Vere reference. What else is modern and good?

(If you ever want to get into Shakespeare's sonnets, Don Paterson's commentary is wondrous. Not just on WS but on how poetry and good writing works. Masterclass, delivered like he was drunk & distracted.)

PJ