On 2/1/12 6:08 PM, Hauke Laging wrote: > My question was NOT "Why do so few people use email cryptography"? > But that is the question this paper wants to answer.
Your statement was, "I just don't understand why someone who has understood the concept[s] and is capable of [using the software] should not use that technology for his email." That's a statement, not a question: I inferred your question as, "Why is it people who understand the concepts and are capable of using the software don't use it for their email?" And that is, in fact, exactly the question they're answering. "In this paper we try to identify additional barriers by interviewing a set of users from an organization that relies on secrecy. Our interviews demonstrate that users' attitudes about encryption, and the social significance users attach to it, are an important factor in limiting adoption." Their central finding? It's not a technological problem: it's a social one. > Some points from the paper: > > • It is (mainly) about people not familiar with GnuPG in some context > different from email. Incorrect. GnuPG is never mentioned in the paper. The NGO mentioned in the paper is PGP-only. Some of their case studies (Woodward) used PGP to encrypt files on their desktops: others (Abe) were email-only. Some were email-only (Jenny) but abandoned it, others... etc. > • Most or even all of those users did not have an environment which > creates signatures or encrypts automatically. Incorrect. The paper makes it clear they had plugins available to do the process automatically. "In addition, [Woodward] distrusted plugins for email programs, relying on encrypting the text of a message first and copying it into his email program later." That sentence only makes sense if they had access to plugins. Further, PGP circa 2006 shipped with email plugins. Another user, Abe, "used encryption to protect financial data ... [he] believed this setup was simple." From that I infer Abe had suitable tools for the task -- which is quite plausible, given we know they were using PGP. _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
