5 ms·

I think the 99% of the time it's not an issue argument is invalid. Encryption isn't really necessary for 99% of people at any given time anyways. It's just that

by jlrubin 12y ago

I think the 99% of the time it's not an issue argument is invalid. Encryption isn't really necessary for 99% of people at any given time anyways. It's just that you don't know when you're in the 99 and when you're in the 1 percent, and a mistake in that 1 percent of the time is crucial, that's why we try to do it 100% of the time.

kevinr 12y ago
Well, and there's the availability concern -- if it's a critical or time-sensitive message, sending it to the right address with the wrong encryption key is the same as the message getting dropped in transit, which is hazardous. Heck, even with a verified key, I've seen it at least once where a critical e-mail came in to a shared key but nobody was around who could decrypt it. When PGP is used only in special circumstances, the e-mail verification almost needs to be refreshed periodically to make sure the owner continues to have control of the account and the key.
murbard2 12y ago
As with everything in crypto: it depends on your threat model. If you are sending very sensitive secret messages, it is indeed crucial that you take the precaution to verify the keys very thoroughly. If however, you merely want to avoid being caught in the NSA dragnet, trust on first contact does the trick.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  If you want to avoid being in a dragnet, just requiring TLS using policies on your SMTP server is enough. That's what many organizations do already. If you just want "encryption" as a checkbox, then just use Gmail with everyone and your data isn't going anywhere outside Google anyways. I'm wondering who the users are that have threat models that make them concerned about attackers able to compromise, say, Google, but not capable enough of getting fake keys out. This article in particular says fake keys aren't important because the attacker needs access to the mailbox. Well if they don't have access, you don't need encryption in the first place! Sure, there's a marginal improvement (ignoring all the downsides of encryption, like forgetting your passphrase means losing all data) but it doesn't seem to be useful for actual targeted users.
  - aw3c2 12y ago
    You are not seriously suggesting that Gmail is perfectly private, are you? You must have missed how the NSA was tapping between Google's servers. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in... End to end encryption is safe, mail server to mail server leaves your mail unencrypted on an unknown number of servers. If those are in the US or a similarly crazy country, they are just one letter away from being read.
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      No, I'm suggesting that the tradeoffs if PGP are unacceptable for most users, and that using TLS between mail servers (even on private fiber) would be a good way to stop full on collection. The NSA story is a nice addition, but tales of the FBI carnivore system reading all email by connecting at big interexchanges is decades old, yet no one is taking even that part seriously.
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      No, I'm suggesting that the tradeoffs if PGP are unacceptable for most users, and that using TLS between mail servers (even on private fiber) would be a good way to stop full on collection. The NSA story is a nice addition, but tales of the FBI carnivore system reading all email by connecting at big interexchanges is decades old, yet no one is taking even that part seriously.

by jlrubin 12y ago

kevinr 12y ago

Well, and there's the availability concern -- if it's a critical or time-sensitive message, sending it to the right address with the wrong encryption key is the same as the message getting dropped in transit, which is hazardous. Heck, even with a verified key, I've seen it at least once where a critical e-mail came in to a shared key but nobody was around who could decrypt it. When PGP is used only in special circumstances, the e-mail verification almost needs to be refreshed periodically to make sure the owner continues to have control of the account and the key.

murbard2 12y ago

As with everything in crypto: it depends on your threat model. If you are sending very sensitive secret messages, it is indeed crucial that you take the precaution to verify the keys very thoroughly. If however, you merely want to avoid being caught in the NSA dragnet, trust on first contact does the trick.

MichaelGG 12y ago
If you want to avoid being in a dragnet, just requiring TLS using policies on your SMTP server is enough. That's what many organizations do already. If you just want "encryption" as a checkbox, then just use Gmail with everyone and your data isn't going anywhere outside Google anyways. I'm wondering who the users are that have threat models that make them concerned about attackers able to compromise, say, Google, but not capable enough of getting fake keys out. This article in particular says fake keys aren't important because the attacker needs access to the mailbox. Well if they don't have access, you don't need encryption in the first place! Sure, there's a marginal improvement (ignoring all the downsides of encryption, like forgetting your passphrase means losing all data) but it doesn't seem to be useful for actual targeted users.
- aw3c2 12y ago
  You are not seriously suggesting that Gmail is perfectly private, are you? You must have missed how the NSA was tapping between Google's servers. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in... End to end encryption is safe, mail server to mail server leaves your mail unencrypted on an unknown number of servers. If those are in the US or a similarly crazy country, they are just one letter away from being read.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    No, I'm suggesting that the tradeoffs if PGP are unacceptable for most users, and that using TLS between mail servers (even on private fiber) would be a good way to stop full on collection. The NSA story is a nice addition, but tales of the FBI carnivore system reading all email by connecting at big interexchanges is decades old, yet no one is taking even that part seriously.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    No, I'm suggesting that the tradeoffs if PGP are unacceptable for most users, and that using TLS between mail servers (even on private fiber) would be a good way to stop full on collection. The NSA story is a nice addition, but tales of the FBI carnivore system reading all email by connecting at big interexchanges is decades old, yet no one is taking even that part seriously.