In reply to my original comment: "Actually that would be an extremely effective way of drawing attention to your new subversive status, Chris! All encrypted email is reported to be routinely subjected to cracking by the N S A whereas 'en clair' (unencrypted) text is merely sampled! PGP is called that because the privacy afforded is 'pretty' rather than 'very' good. Thus posing little challenge to governments."
Mr Noyb posted: >Ha! It's doubtful that Chris is going to be noticed amongst the >large number of people (on the order of millions) who already use >PGP worldwide! He should not count on it. G C H Q here in the UK aims to check all encrypted traffic and similar policies have been in place for years on both sides of the Atlantic. > I should ask you exactly who is >the source of your "reported" information? Adrian Berry, until recently Science Correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, has written about the subject regularly in the paper. Ditto Duncan Campbell in The Observer and The Guardian. Likewise extensive coverage in the Washington Post passim. My brother, who is a military historian and has written books on both GCHQ and the NSA, today confirmed my understanding that encrypting messages is an effective way of ensuring they are examined. > Oh, and it's not >just governments that I don't want reading my emails without >permission: there's also my family, colleagues, visitors, employers, >employees, service and trades people, ISP sysadmins, et cetera. How >much of a challenge does PGP provide to them, do you think? Pretty Good - unless one of them is seriously interested. Kroll and forensic cryptanalysts employed by corporate security departments and even divorce lawyers will quietly lay claim to being able to read PGP encrypted messages if the budget is available. Significant vulnerabilities in PGP have been identified (see for example: www.i.cz/en/onas/tisk4.html 'Cryptologists from Czech company ICZ detected serious security vulnerability of an international magnitude'). Cryptanalytic gossip has it that government uses a process called 'fast factoring', though I wouldn't pretend to understand it. Of course there are usually much easier (and cheaper) ways of reading original messages at either end. Keystroke loggers and Van Eck Radiation seem to be the usual first choices, both of government and private investigators. This is all perfectly well documented. I am not arguing against use of PGP, merely reliance on the assumption that encryption provides a garantee of privacy. Julian ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
