On Friday 21 March 2003 10:42 am, James Oakley wrote:
On Thursday 20 March 2003 03:00 pm, Chris Geske wrote:
Can anyone honestly say they have had such important emails that they had to use pgp to confirm the sender?
I know a ton of people who use to use pgp a few years ago, none of them are currently using it!
I used pgp ocasionally on my amiga years ago, but at the time I was much less active sending e-mail, I plan to start using it again (gpg) as a result of this thread.
I send analytical data to our clients, and I could see the use of pgp in that case. But com'n, using pgp in mail lists is a little overboard.
It's more important in public mailing lists, IMO. Imagine if someone sent an email to the list, pretending to be me, saying that my apt server moved to another host. This theoretical evil guy could have put trojans in the packages. If the signature fails, people will be wary.
Also, imagine if someone in your company posted your company's secrets on the list, pretending to be you. If you can't prove that you didn't do it, you could be fired/sued.
In these times of diminishing freedoms (in some cases a total re-definition of what freedom is), it is important to preserve the rights you have in order to save them from extinction. Signing messages helps to protect these rights merely through its visibility. The more people who use privacy, authenticity procedures, the more dificult it becomes to restrict these rights. see ya -- dh unsigned today... Don't shop at GoogleGear.com!