Security measures all of us can take - part 3

2013-08-10 22:53:00

Here's another follow-up with regards to security matters I believe everybody should know. It's a short one: Email is not safe.

It has been said that you "don't put anything in an email that you wouldn't want to see on the evening news." It's not even a matter of the NSA/FBI/KGB/superspies. Email really is akin to writing something on a postcard: it's legible to anyone who can get his hands on it. And like with the postal service, many people can get their hands on your email. 

Here is an excelent and long read on the many issues with email. But to sum it up:

  1. In general, emails are transfered and stored unencrypted. Anyone on the same network as you can read them in passing. Anyone managing an email server can read the mails stored on them.
  2. Source/sender information is easily spoofed. There is no way to guarantee that an email actually came from whoever's name is at the top. 

These two problems can be worked around in a few rather technical manners, most of which are not very user friendly. The most important one is to use GPG/PGP, which allows you to encrypt (problem 1) and to digitally sign (problem 2) the emails that you send. It certainly helps, but it introduces a new problem: key exchange. You now need to swap encryption keys with all people with whom you'll want to swap emails. But at least it's something. 

In the mean time:

Want to send me an encrypted email? Here's my public key :)


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