On Fri, 2001-09-28 at 09:53, Holman C. Massey, Jr., PhD wrote: > That was not a very funny joke. I'm not surprised the perpetrator was > ashamed to put it out under his/her own name. Since this sort of > thing has happened several other times on the list, I'm wondering if > this information might be useful for the rest of us to have as well > if some of the more computer/internet savvy members of the list want > to speak up.
Preventing email forgery per se is very difficult to do, as any knowledgeable type with a telnet client can easily forge the origin of an email address. The method I use to prevent this from being a problem is to sign all of my email messages digitally. One can then verify the signature with some special software (my email client, for example, does this automatically) to verify its authenticity. I know only how to do this on a Unix or GNU/Linux system. The short story is that you use a software program such as GNU Privacy Guard (http://www.gnupg.org/) or Pretty Good Privacy to generate two keys -- one public, that you share with the world, and one private, that you keep very secure and do not give to anyone. You should also encrypt the private key with a password; the software I have mentioned above facilitates this. Then, you publish your public key to the world, so that anyone can retrieve it. When sending email, you use an email client that supports digital signing. Thus when your email goes out, it is digitally signed, so that anyone can go download your public key and verify that it is authentic. My public key is available on my web page at http://www.cis.udel.edu/~hovinen/ > Holman > > >does anyone have some info on what to do when someone is forging your > >account? > > > >please email offlist. > > > >thanks, > >kara > > > >btw - i dont use my email address as sender. > > > -- > Holman C. Massey, Jr., PhD > Department of Pathobiology > School of Veterinary Medicine > University of Pennsylvania > 3800 Spruce Street, Room 430 > Philadelphia, PA 19104-6008 > > Telephone: 215-573-4756 > FAX: 215-573-7023 > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ---- > You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the > list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe, see <http://www.purple.com/list.html>. > Archive is at <http://www.mail-archive.com/>. -- -Bradford Hovinen We are most probably here for local information-gathering and local-Universe problem-solving in support of the integrity of eternally regenerative Universe. -- R. Buckminster Fuller
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