Between 733t h4x0r5 and the government, it has long been my desire to better secure my communications.
Recent stories on our corporate friends unquestioningly cooperating with our government friends re-fueled my fire. Thankfully, I have some extra time to read up and play with the technologies.
E-mail-wise, I use SSL, so good for me. I would like to also use PGP but almost no one does this, even the geeks I know.
IM wise, I used Adium‘s built-in privacy features to encrypt communications and installed a GAIM plug-in that does the same. While both installs were easy, I know the average Joes and Ivans will have trouble trying to figure out how to have IM conversations with me. Too bad for them.
I read up on Skype’s encryption. Interestingly, they use excellent methods and reap plenty of praise for their efforts, but no one seems to notice that they admittedly fulfill every government request, making this article’s headline funny/odd. So you may be safe from Mr. Pwn3d and Osama, but not from the NSA.
What do you think it would take for everyone to start encrypting their email?
Ack. For some reason, I didn’t see this.
If you’re being snarky, the answer is that I need to start.
If not, then the answer is that encryption needs to become invisible to the user. That doesn’t mean the user should not know it exists, but that it’s not a hassle to install and use. Currently, it is. And if something weird happens, there’s no way normal users will be able to troubleshoot, even if it’s just a restart of the software.
Even if a movement developed to integrate PGP or something similar into e-mail clients, the government would probably begin objecting and pressuring the companies who supply most users their e-mail programs (e.g., Microsoft).
Nope, not being snarky.
That’s what I figured it would take, too. Outlook needs to have it built-in and enabled by default and then Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc. need to enable it. Of course, you’re right that if it ever started happening, the government would shut it down.