[Pine-info] getross - email privacy /security of system

[Ryan Barrett]

On Mon, 30 Oct 2006, RossARR wrote:


> May I ask: Just how secure is an email message in the Pine system? Or is

> inet mail in general that open to matter, without encryption anyway? I am

> not aware of any encryption in Pine, save file formats.


i'm surprised that no one mentioned end-to-end encryption methods like PGP.
they protect mail against administrators on both the sending and receiving
end, as well as on all of the intermediate MTAs.

granted, both the sender and the receiver need to set up their MUAs to support
the same encryption mechanism, be it PGP or anything else. this may be enough
to turn off the average user, but it's not a big hurdle for computer-literate
people who really care about privacy.

of course, at that point, you'll have secure, private email only with *other*
computer-literate people who also care about privacy and have encryption set
up. gotta love real-world security tradeoffs...

-Ryan

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