Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Engaging Newbies In Email Encryption and Network Privacy

Posted by timothy on from the ok-mom-it's-like-this dept.

reifman writes: All six parts of my series introducing beginners to PGP encryption and network privacy are now freely available. I hope it's useful for Slashdot readers to share with their less-technical acquaintances. There's an introduction to PGP, a guide to email encryption on the desktop, smartphone and in the browser, an introduction to the emerging key sharing and authentication startup, Keybase.io, and an intro to VPNs. There's a lot more work for us to do in the ease of use of communications privacy but this helps people get started more with what's available today.

2 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. No ... Email privacy is NOT 'broken' by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Email privacy is broken. Working around this broken email system is worthwhile and it's past time. Here's how to get started with PGP encryption."

    You are off to a bad start. As sensational as your statement is, and with the full understanding of your desire to immediately capture the readers attention, you really ned to change it. E-mail privacy isn't broken. E-mail is by design not a private communication system. What you have written is not unlike claiming that DC-10s are broken because they cannot fly to the moon. You immediately caught my attention though. I'll grant you that! :-)

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  2. Yes and no, but mostly no. by rjh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes and no, but mostly no. (ObDisclosure: I help out with Enigmail.)

    • Could we do better? Maybe. Probably. But first you'll have to define what "better" means. Some people say it means stronger crypto. Some say it means a simpler RFC. Some say it means a better user interface/user experience. And some people -- idiots who don't understand that optimizing one of these may necessarily mean pessimizing another -- smile and say, "Yes!" Honestly, when it comes to "we can do better" style criticism, my response is simple: I know we can do better -- but first you have to tell me what 'better' means.

    • But that doesn't matter. When it comes to communications security the world is divided into two camps. The first one doesn't need it right now and the second one does. If you don't need communications security right now, that gives you a great amount of luxury to sit on the sidelines and wait for something better to come along. If you do, though ... then GnuPG and Enigmail are pretty much the best thing going right now, at least when it comes to email.

    • Alternatives? What alternatives? The only alternative right now for email security is S/MIME, and that's far worse than OpenPGP. If you want to communicate using Silent Circle, go for it. Want to use OTR, be my guest. But if you need email security... "it's probably time to look into alternatives" is the kind of advice that sounds good only until you realize just how few alternatives there are, or how lousy they are.

    I'll be the first to agree that GnuPG is a usability nightmare. Absolutely. If you like I'll point you towards several references in the peer-reviewed literature that show why it's so bad. But when people start talking about alternatives, I want to know which alternatives they're suggesting; when people start talking about doing it better, I want to know what better means.