Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 14 2006 @ 09:10 PM CDT

I, in genral, go by the maxim that if it needs to be encrypted, you probably shouldn't say it over the internet(phones as well, for that matter)

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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 25 2006 @ 01:06 AM CDT

pgp isn't just about encrypting stuff that you NEED to encrypt. it's also about privacy. if you regularly send encrypted emails to everyone else you know who uses pgp, and then occasionally one of them mentions something you don't want anyone to know about, it's gonna be a hell of a lot harder for the feds to catch on.

there are some times when you can't do face-to-face communication. imagine trying to coordinate an action with 15 different affinity groups all in different states, or different parts of the world even. without encrypted email, communication between these groups would be impossible.

another good thing to check out is tor (http://tor.eff.org) and the firefox extension foxyproxy. tor lets you browse the web with an encrypted secure connection that bounces around to a random sequence of proxy servers before finally getting to it's destination, making it almost imposibble to trace. it's great for not letting creepy corporations like google to build up profiles on you, and for doing internet research (http://www.sec.gov/ for example is great for finding the addresses of corporate executives and investors, but you don't want them to be logging your ip address when you're researching that info).

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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 15 2006 @ 02:56 AM CDT

once did I ever go about learning the use of encription softweare and it's a pain in the ass at first especaly considering one rarely needs to use it. It seams practical that intel organisations have some sort of detection device for conversations over the internet, but I bet it's so swamped it'd be difficult to get meaningfull information out of often.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 16 2006 @ 08:46 AM CDT

How about a 'no, but interested' option?

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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 16 2006 @ 10:51 AM CDT

I'm in the I tried it and gave up category. A freind set up PGP on my computer and I didn't really get how to use it and have no forgotten my password or string.

With that said, encryption is super awesome, and there is no reason (other than lazyness and technological incompotence, which I have both) that we don't encrypt everything we send.

a story told to me that I might be messing up the details: One of the US defense or intellegence agencies tried to crack an email that was encrypted with PGP and it took them years, to break a couple paragraphs of text.

There was tons of email that prosecution wanted to use against the SHAC 7, but because it was encrypted they couldn't touch it. They asked the NSA to break them and were laughed at because it was so labor intensive to break even one.

I really need to learn how to use this.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 16 2006 @ 11:08 AM CDT

New versions of PGP encryption have a "back-door" built into them because of that event. The US govt has sole access to this back-door so they can avoid similar embarassments.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 16 2006 @ 05:20 PM CDT

what programs do you use to encrypt emails? is there a server that encrypts emails if you have an account with them? was ziplip encrypted email or no?

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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 17 2006 @ 10:39 AM CDT

Ziplip and hushmail were both encrypted. I'm not sure the status of them and the security of them these days.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 19 2006 @ 11:51 AM CDT

thats a rumor thats been around since the beginning of pgp, and its unsubstanciated. also there's open source pgp if'n you're extra paranoid.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 20 2006 @ 03:32 AM CDT

any back door into an encription program would quickly become exploited by hackers to decode people's stuff. I doubt an encription program could have such a back door for longer than two months (rough estamate) before an "incident" occured causing a huge backlash.

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Authored by: ga on Thursday, August 24 2006 @ 01:38 PM CDT

PGP encryption have a "back-door"

Don't be spreading crap information without proof. From the PGP Timeline (PRZ = Phil R Zimmermann, internet folk hero, author of PGP):

The US government introduces the 1991 Senate Bill 266. This omnibus anti-crime bill had a measure in it that all encryption software must have a back door in it. An excerpt is in pgpdoc1.txt, distributed with PGP. This bill prompted PRZ to write PGP. This is what PRZ says in pgpguide.lst in pgp1.0:

The 17 Apr 1991 New York Times reports on an unsettling US Senate proposal that is part of a counterterrorism bill. If this nonbinding resolution became real law, it would force manufacturers of secure communications equipment to insert special "trap doors" in their products, so that the Government can read anyone's encrypted messages. It reads: "It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications service equipment shall insure that communications systems permit the Government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications when appropriately authorized by law."

http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/timeline/

PGP is open source.

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http://feedthemtothelions.com/

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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 24 2006 @ 02:02 AM CDT

If anyone is having trouble with encrypted communications, I strongly recomend the gaim-encryption plugin for gaim, the free aim client. Once it is installed (which is easy if you use an operating system with good package management like Ubuntu or Debian), sending an encrypted IM is as simple as clicking a button and you get unbreakable 4096 bit RSA protection.

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Authored by: ga on Thursday, August 24 2006 @ 02:02 PM CDT

Another aspect of "encryption" is SIGNING. A way to digitally sign your e-mail for example, so that people can trust their sources. I.e. e-mail that is signed cannot be forged, and e-mail that is not signed cannot be trusted.

PGP does this.

For Windows users the combination of Mozilla Thunderbird, GNU PGP for Windows and the Thunderbird extension Enigmail is fairly easy to setup.


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http://feedthemtothelions.com/

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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 25 2006 @ 06:33 PM CDT

yo... peep this...

makes things a bit easier. it's brand new.

http://www.freenigma.com/

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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 29 2006 @ 12:14 AM CDT

i think an anarchist techie REALLY needs to make a "security culture for the internet" pamphlet. that really breaks it down and shows a person how to use all the different kinds of software and stuff that is out there to protect your privacy. it is needed NOW before another casae like Sherman Austin happens.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 03 2006 @ 11:22 AM CDT

Sherman was set up. All the security zines on the internet in the would wouldnt have stoped that.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 06 2006 @ 10:13 AM CDT

I have encrypted yodels

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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 08 2006 @ 02:59 AM CDT

try scatterchat (www.scatterchat.com )
It's been recently realeased by world renowned hacktivists(http://en.wikipedia.org/Hacktivism )Hacktivismo (www.hacktivismo.com http://en.wikipedia.org/Hacktivismo ) it uses tor aswell, and is used in many oppressed countries such as china, cuba etc.
Give it a try, or atleast a look.
Also apparentally (htt://en.wikipedia.org/echelon ) the EU has been trying to use quantum physics cryptography which is called unbreakable to use against echelon

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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 09 2006 @ 03:33 PM CDT

Is there a site some place that has a good 101 about internet security for macs? Are there any sites that can explain the logic of encryption?
I've been using public computers for the past 5 years but am buying my first very soon.

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