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I suppose it would make sense if you had to make an exchange of keys with someone before initiating communication. Thus, when you give out your email to people, you could give them a key that they would need in order to send you an email, and similar methods would apply to other communication mechanisms. Now the spammers will need to waste inordinate amounts of computer time computing all kinds of keys, and the practice of spamming will (hopefully) disappear. Now this being /., someone will tell me why such a scheme is impossible. :-)

It already exists. It's called S/Mime. You can learn how to use it here and here. It not only provides you with a way for receivers to know your mail is authentic, but it also allows you to send secure email if you have an S/Mime key for the receiver. (And you'll get their key the first time they sign their message to provide authenticity to you) It's like SSL for email. The major problem is that it is not pre-installed by default and most of the under-30 crowd uses web mail, therefore no one can be bothered to use it.

Mac OS X and Windows

The following has been my email sig for years. Did you know that, to date, only one person I know has made use of it?

Learn how to secure your email
(Mac OS X 10.3+) http://www.joar.com/certificates/
(Windows) http://www.marknoble.com/tutorial/smime/smime.aspx

I'll trot this pony out one more time:

(Mac OS X 10.3+) http://www.joar.com/certificates/
(Windows) http://www.marknoble.com/tutorial/smime/smime.aspx

While I appreciate the idea and all, why? It's really not worth the time to encrypt my email. Do you think that if the feds are monitoring your line, they are just going to say, "Damn! He's encrypted. Let's move on to the next." I'm going to guess not. If anything, seeing that you email is encrypted might be enough to peak their interest to make you MORE watched, not less. This also takes precious manpower away from the people who are trying to stop the next terror attack in the US. Regardless of you political opinions, I don't see how anyone could think that impeding these guys is a good thing.

Me on the other hand, I don't care. There is nothing incriminating in my email beyond sending stupid YouTube links to a buddy or bitching to the wife about who chooses whats for dinner. I'm really not interesting enough for the Feds to care about. Please take no offense when I say that I doubt anyone else here is either.

I'll trot this pony out one more time:

(Mac OS X 10.3+) http://www.joar.com/certificates/
(Windows) http://www.marknoble.com/tutorial/smime/smime.aspx

Even if you do run your own server... well, better safe than sorry.

Learn how to secure your email
(Mac OS X 10.3+) http://www.joar.com/certificates/
(Windows) http://www.marknoble.com/tutorial/smime/smime.aspx

You yanks are all bleating on about how bad this is and how high these figures are. What makes you think your own government is being any less nosy about your affairs?

Because I encrypt my email... Learn how to secure *your* email on Mac OS X 10.3+ and Windows.

Gonzales would be permitted to force Internet providers to keep logs of Web browsing, instant message exchanges, or e-mail conversations indefinitely.

Other than email, I'd be really surprised if most ISPs logged anything in the first place. As for email... nothing has ever protected you there unless you use encryption. Learn how to secure your email for Mac OS X 10.3+ and Windows.

In short, that statement would be a lot scarier if the word "indefinitely" were omitted.

• Mac OS X 10.3+
• Windows

You can get a free personal certificate from Thawte that works great. Once you've setup your account with them, you can create a signature for each email address you use. On the Mac side, you just download the certificate, and the Mac takes care of automatically installing it. Mail will also detect the certificates you install, and you'll see sign and encrypt (provided you have the recipients public key) buttons when you compose new messages. Here's a tutorial on getting it up and running with Mail:

http://joar.com/certificates/

It also works with Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, and Mozilla:

http://www.marknoble.com/tutorial/smime/smime.aspx

Actually, the "quarter-inch thick" bit was the most important bit -- I'll bet your computer is at least three times thicker. Also, wanting it to be that thin also should have indicated that I wanted it to be light -- no more than, say, a pound or so.

What a tablet PC should be is a device of similar thickness to an iPod Nano, with a 1.8" hard drive and an ARM (or similarly low heat and power) processor. They should come in two sizes; A4 (~ normal letter size) and A5 (half letter size, or about 4 x 5.5 inches).

Basically, think of a PADD from Star Trek and you've got the form-factor about right. Oddly enough, if you compare one to a PDA, it's not really all that different (note: the PADD in the comparison is a particularly small one).

Oh, and as a college student myself, I don't doubt that you love your Tablet PC. However, given that they're supposedly designed to be used like a pad of paper, they really are too thick and heavy.