On Mar 2, 2010, at 11:47 AM, John Robinson wrote: > What is the difference between a POP and a POPs? I guess the "s" stands for > secure but how do you get to that, by using an ISP that allows for SSL?
Regular POP sends everything, including passwords, across the Net in clear text. POPs encrypts everything. The 's' stands for 'secure'. > A couple things here. If the little "lock" is grayed, but still shows the > certificate to be viewed is it safe? Possibly the lock icon is never dark? > In the WiFI spots and you are indeed on an encrypted connection does that > mean what you type is sent in a packet that is garbled (encrypted) until it > gets to their site and then it is unscrambled? On our end, what do we have > to do in order to be sure we are sending encrypted, use and ISP that allows > SSL? At least in Safari, if the lock is there, then all traffic between your computer and the server computer on the other end is encrypted. This means it's nearly impossible for any 'man in the middle' to eavesdrop on your traffic. If the lock isn't there, then the traffic is clear text and any man in the middle can read it. You have to do nothing to take advantage of a secure connection. If the site you're visiting sends a security certificate to your browser, then your browser and the site's server will do all the work in setting up the encryption. Your ISP has nothing to do with you talking to an encrypted Web page. The ISP is nothing more than a conduit carrying bytes back and forth. All encryption and decryption occurs at the endpoints. > Aye.net does NOT use SSL, but Insight does so sending an email I would need > to use the insight address rather than aye.net, but when I am in a coffee > shop and jumping on their service I don't know if is secure (SSL)? How do > you know since you have your system set to Insight's specifications yet you > are using another ISP? I am confused on this as you can tell. The way it works is this. If somebody running a Web page wants to run a secure Web page, then they obtain a security certificate, usually from one of the certificate authorities like Verisign or GoDaddy. They add this security certificate to their server. When you contact their page, the server sends out the public part of the certificate and your browser uses this to set up secure communication. Your ISP has nothing to do with it, unless they happen to own the Web page. Insight's Web mail is a secure site. > So I guess you are using MobileMe for your mail service, and encrypting with > the SSL, the same that Insight does. I can start using either of these as I > have both but I am still confused as to how that is secure if I am writing my > daughter and she is on a service that does not have SSL. I guess it would be > secure leaving my machine in the coffee shop and getting to the servers at > Insight or Apple, but then going from them to her ISP it would NOT be > encrypted if her company didn't support SSL? Many email providers support IMAPs. MobileMe and Google are among them. Insight does not support IMAPs because I don’t think Insight has any form of IMAP support. That's the main reason I don’t use Insight's mail, even though I have a cable broadband connection. (I don’t much like Web mail.) With my family and several of my friends, I go one step more toward privacy; I encrypt the email before it leaves my computer. Most modern email clients support an encryption method called S/MIME. If you and the person with whom you're corresponding have gone to the trouble of getting special S/MIME certificates, then all the mail between the two of you is automatically securely encrypted. I also use the S/MIME certificate to sign my email, which you may have noticed, if you use Apple's mail, because it tells you the message is signed. Nobody can effectively impersonate me via email. There are many ways to maintain some privacy and security on the Web with simple encryption. If more of us took the time to learn how to do it, much of the spam problem would go away.
smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
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