>This is a nice idea, but again tends to have limited usefulness outside the
 >geek community.
But, we're all geeks here, right?
 > > I, personally, use 2048-bit encrypted email to anyone who can recieve
it. I
 > > do this for two reasons: the first is that I do care a bit about my
 > > privacy, and the second...
 > >
 >Your email is not encrypted using 2048 bits. The PGP plugin generates a
 >message key and encrypts it once for each recipient with the 2048-bit
 >assymetric algorithm. Your actual email text is encrypted using a symmetric
 >algorithm, usually 3DES these days. This is for two reasons. Firstly, if you
 >used the assymetric algorithm to encrypt the email, you would have to have a
 >full copy for each recipient. Not good if you're sending a 1M pdf to 100
 >people. Secondly, the assymetric algorithms are 100's of times slower than
 >3DES. This is more of an issue in real-time encryption, but still holds for
 >email.
Not quite. PGP allows the use of CAST, IDEA, and 3DES. I'm set to CAST
right now.
[snip]
 > > So, A) If enough people use encrypted email on a regular basis, then
 > > encryption cannot be declared a tool of terrorists, and B) I don't want
 > > people snooping in my private email.
 > >
 > > I know I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist, but, I think it's healthy to
 > have
 > > some skepticism as to the trustworthyness of email, and PGP gives a good
 > > step in the right direction.
 > >
 >That's the whole thing behind PGP right? The problem is that you and me
doing
 >it doesn't really make a difference. The governments were really swayed by
 >commercial pressure from large networking equipment and software vendors
 >who are
 >increasingly offering virtual private networking services which (often) rely
 >on encryption to provide their services.
If a very large percentage of the geek community were to use it, they could
not deny the fact that others than terrorists used the technology.
--Brendan

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList
mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu