On 11/21/07, Paul Louden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Exactly what is your intent with such a plugin? Why is encrypting the > information on the device considered better than encrypting them on the > host, and decrypting them on the destination?
It is preferable to do the encryption/decryption on the device for a couple of reasons off the top of my head. First, I may not even have permission to install the decryption routines on the computer (most public computers, a lot of "work" computers, etc.). Second, I may trust the "public" computer with say my password to slashdot.org, but I certainly don't want them to have access to all of my passwords and private data. Basically it's just a way limiting the information given out to the bare minimum, and would be much more convenient for me personally, and I assume for others. Also I have private data that I never really need to enter into other machines, but I like to be able to access (financial data). Surely if both the host and destination are secure enough for making use > of the unencrypted files, encrypting and decrypting them there are also > valid? And much, much, faster? > That would sometimes work, yes, but I am unconvinced that it will be real-world faster for small amounts of data (If it takes .5 seconds, vs .01 seconds, who cares? Especially if I'd have to spend 5 minutes downloading and installing software on the public machine). If we're talking about gigabytes of data, then yes, you are certainly correct (this is definitely not my target use case). -mud
