PGP signatures

[Joerg Bencke]

On Thu, 22 Apr 1999 14:47:49 -0700, Steve Lamb wrote:

>    But reverse it.  If everyone sent a postcard and someone sent an envelope
>people would wonder what is in it, what is so important that it needs to be
>hidden?
>
>    In the electronic world the privacy envelope is the encryption.  Right
>now everyone is sending mail with postcards.  Only "important" stuff is sent
>via envelopes.  I am of the opinion that everything should be sent via
>envelopes and be signed, just as in the paper world.  This is because privacy
>is our right and unless exercised to its fullest it draws attention at the
>times you don't want it to.

I second that. Call me paranoid, if you want. But if you watched Will
Smtih as Enemy No1, and know how far technical possibilities are today,
you might reconsider. It will never happen ? Well MS already introduced
PC- and User IDs and just collected them. What makes you believe they
could not monitor all traffic, that comes through their Internet-sites
both going to, from and relaying ? How can you control, what IE5 or the
lastest gimmick you downloaded sends, when your online ? With Email, you
can control it a bit.

Check out Happy99 or Melissa : If you know Steve always signs his messages
and then you get a happy99.exe in an unsigned, stupid-subject, no-body
message without sign ... You should start wondering.

Also, I might change a famous acronym (is that the word ?), Freedom is the
Freedom to encrypt mail :-) Do I sound idealistic now ? Well, I could say
the majoriy of the US-Americans seems to think Freedom is the Freedom to
have a AK47 in the kitchendrawer (ok is overdone, but you see the point
?),
but that could start a flame war making hell look a nice cool place, so I
wont even think it.

Well, I think everyone should encrypt mail. Unfortunately, I know very few
people who use PGP, well they also use IE4 and Active x and now virus
scanner ...

Josch
---        !Protect your privacy, use Email encryption!
Joerg Bencke                           Joerg@Bencke.de
PGP Key availabla via Keyserver.    KeyID = 0x815B5EC5
Fingerprint = 2CD6 9887 3DE1 15F5  C77E FC33 5EBF 96E6