(A new idea -- romantic crypto for all lovers to lock up their pr0n.......rf)
Underencrypted and Overexposed By Regina Lynn Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67159,00.html 02:00 AM Apr. 08, 2005 PT A girlfriend of mine suffered a sex-tech tragedy earlier this year: Her portable hard drive was stolen from her bag when an airline lost her luggage for three days. The external drive contained pictures, e-mails and IM logs saved from the start of her relationship with a lover -- everything they sent to each other over the course of a year. For some couples, that might not be such a big deal, especially if you live together like this couple usually do. But for the past six months, work has sent my friends in opposite directions. With approximately 2,984.8 miles between them (according to Yahoo maps), they've had to find creative ways to nurture their intimacy between monthly conjugal visits. That includes virtual sex, video e-mail and whatever else they think of doing along the way. It's not just the phone bills that keep them off the land line. She's deaf, and phone sex can't do much for her. But they are among the most creative cyberlovers I know. It makes the loss of the hard drive that much more nerve-racking. In fact, it's a double blow. One, she's lost her multimedia keepsakes of the tender moments, the passionate declarations, the late-night conversations only two highly sexual people can have. Two, none of the pictures was encrypted. And believe me, these are not the kind of images you share with your friends, much less the entire internet. She's been smacking herself in the head ever since. They use encryption for e-mail and instant messaging, so why not for stored romantic data as well? Like most of us, she never got around to it. Nor did it occur to her that her portable hard drive was at much risk, as she is the only one who ever uses it. Most likely the thief reformatted the drive without looking at the data. Still, the couple have scanned the internet apprehensively since the incident. Internet communication, on the other hand, seemed vulnerable enough to warrant extra safety measures from the start. Very few people can decipher an encrypted e-mail, "unless they have the recipient's private key, which must be protected at all costs," she says. For e-mail, she uses Mozilla Thunderbird with the Enigmail extension, and private and public encryption keys from GnuPG. "It was a pain to set it up," she says. "Encryption is still geek's territory, so a lot of the instruction manuals are written for and by programmers. But it works. Google claims there are easier-to-install programs, but I installed Enigmail because my geek boyfriend recommended it." My friend compares the sanctity of her private key to that of her bank card PIN. But I think safeguarding your key could become even more important than hiding your PIN. (Not that you should go flashing your bank PIN around.) If someone steals from your checking account, you're out money and time. Yet you also have ways to recover that money, and you are only liable for a limited amount if you report the theft and prove the claim. The pool of people who know about the violation is limited, and most are sympathetic to your plight. But if someone publishes your personal data -- whether that's homemade porn or love letters to three different people who each think they're your one and only -- you can't erase it from people's minds, even if you could wipe it off the internet. The consequences could reach far beyond your personal embarrassment. Some people get fired just for blogging, even when it's not about sex. (And for whatever reason, some people blog about subjects other than sex. Weird.) Imagine what might happen to your job if your sexual adventures became the online topic du jour. For Mac users, my friend recommends Fire, an instant-message client that encrypts all messages between Fire users (but not between Mac and Windows, or between Fire and other IM clients, yet). OS X also offers encryption through disk imaging and FileVault. Windows users have encryption options as well, if they choose to download them. And of course Linux has many, many nooks for the privacy-minded. On my Windows laptop, I use Trillian Pro, which offers some IM encryption capabilities. Do I use them? Rarely. Nor do I have encryption software for my data. It's just not something I think about when I actually have time to do something about it. As one Sex Drive reader puts it, erotic conversation is a "when-the-mood-strikes type of thing." Encryption is not usually at the top of your mind when someone starts flirting with you and you want to take it further. Until we all have the safer-sex thing down, I don't know that safer cybersex is foremost among our concerns. Maybe it should be. The more mobile we are and the more connected we become, the higher our risk for losing control of our data. I was surprised when I learned how easy it is to look at other people's desktops in a Wi-Fi cafe. I imagine most people wouldn't bother, but all it takes is a comfort level with installing spy software and too much time on your hands. And all it takes to snoop on a partner's digital affairs is a keylogger or other desktop-monitoring tool installed on the computer the person uses. (Of course, if you don't feel like being snooped on, you could always try an anti-keylogger.) Since the theft of her external drive, my girlfriend has become somewhat obsessed with learning about all kinds of data security. She can talk with true geeks about warchalking and digital signatures, encryption and network sniffers, and no one would know she learned all this the hard way. But that doesn't mean she's gone entirely paranoid. "My cell phone can be locked with a password," she says, "but I don't use that feature." See you next Friday, Regina Lynn Regina Lynn invites you to join her in the public Sex Drive forum if you are an adult 18 years of age or older. Or you can e-mail her directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED] End of story You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
