At 05:46 AM 2/7/2003 -0500, W H Robinson wrote:
I don't think people actually /care/ whether or not their mail is
unencrypted,
so long as it's no hassle for them whichever way - how many people really
take
notice of a small locked padlock icon in the corner of their browser? (It
seems
kind of disparate that sites will proudly display a huge gif to state that
their
connection is secure, but fail to provide hushmail-like pgp'd mail.)
But given the choice between encrypting their own comms or not, many people
would hesitate, and probably opt for the latter. Not necessarily just because
it's another thing to click on, but because they see it has this affiliation
with the bad people hiding the bad things. If they send a block of crypted
text,
then something will "mark" them out and group them as someone to monitor.
That's because they don't see any undesirable consequences for doing
otherwise. I think it may have been mentioned on CP before, but one way to
educate the masses is to have some insiders make copies of personal email
correspondence and post it to somewhere that those with questionable
motives but good technical skills could readily access: say Freenet. How
about a publishing bot that creates a current and accessible db of randomly
selected recent emails crossing the Internet alphabetized by sender name
and email address? My guess is that if the scoundrels supplying the data
cannot be found and the data cannot be removed an increasing number of
people will begin to take their email privacy more seriously.
"Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be
fooled."
-- Richard P. Feynman
