4 ms·

Encrypting email would only make sense if both sides are equally encrypting it. If you're using the most paranoidal encryption, but your email buddy does not -

• gesman 13y ago
  PS: The ultimate solution would be to use Tor-based email (similar to tormail.org) at both sides AND encrypt it from both ends. Then NSA does not know who is communicating and NSA does not know what they are talking about. Problem solved.
  • enraged_camel 13y ago
    >>Problem solved. I wouldn't be so sure. Snowden was hinting at the NSA having the mechanism to break encryption. I lost the exact quote, but it was a direct response to the suggestion that we encrypt everything, and was something along the lines of, "you wouldn't even believe what the NSA is really capable of - it's scary." Even if they don't have the means to get around encryption, you still aren't fully secure. What if you have a keylogger installed on your machine? What if the hardware itself has been designed to aid the NSA? Intel, after all, is one of their regular collaborators.
    • m_eiman 13y ago
      If they have to install a keylogger, at least they have to specifically target you.
    • tomjen3 13y ago
      If NSA can break modern crypto (especially if they can do it in real time) then it is a secret at least as big as Ultra/Magic and the NSA wouldn't ever dare to use anything they found on you this way, even if it was the only way to prevent another 9/11.
  • grysh 13y ago
    But they will know you are using Tor.
    • stephen_g 13y ago
      Better that than them knowing exactly to whom and how much you are communicating.
    • drdaeman 13y ago
      If this becomes popular (easy-to-use bundled software is a must), knowledge about whenever one uses Tor or I2P would be as useful as knowledge that the person in question uses the Internet.
• bebna 13y ago
  "Rot13 is enough encryption for everyone." --Me
  • kunai 13y ago
    Rot13 may not be, but a randomized numerical substitution cipher along with good encryption should be enough to throw off anyone snooping. It is complicated to explain to your family that they should make their emails a jumbled mess, however...
• cabalamat 13y ago
  > But even then if Joe and Bill suddenly got smarty-pants and started encrypting their communication - NSA would get suspicious and will find out what you guys are up to via other channels. Unless everyone used encrypted email. And the only way to achieve that is to make it really easy to use, i.e. to have a zero user interface, so the program automatically encrypts it on the way out and automatically decrypts it on the way in. Key distribution can be handled by putting the public key in the header. The only drawback is this is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.
• mike-cardwell 13y ago
  You can gain a lot of benefits from PGP even if you don't know anybody else that uses it: https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_Email https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_E...