Signing email

[Stephen Allen]

lloyd-fEEwcc3XMu8jODpR/OX0VQ at public.gmane.org wrote:

>>I don't agree with using a digital signature, when there is no purpose
>>for it.  If you're worried about "sniffing", and you're not a spook, or
>>playing with  country and/or company trade secrets, or the 'crown
>>jewels'. What are you  worried about? Identity theft? Please... Most
>>Geeks don't use it out of  necessity, just as a novelty.
> 
> Regardless of the reasoning, it is suggested that it is not effective if
> one does not use it consistently.  It is also suggested that the more
> people that use it everyday, the more effective it is.  Privacy technology
> being common is good for everyone.

I'm not arguing that that it's NOT a suggested theory. I'm stating, I don't 
agree with that hypothesis, (or any I've read, regarding always using). ;)
Granted, I'm not a crypto programmer, or heck a serious geek, like many of you.
And, I don't really care about this issue that much...

> Identify theft is a very real concern today.  Signing ones email is a very
> small part of a solution.  Identity theft is something to be considerate
> of!  Do any research on the subject and you will find that it is having a
> significant negative impact on many people, and the systems (read
> governments) are failing to protect these people.

Sounds like you're buying into issues not significant in this country. Identity 
theft in Canada, is uncommon, and not quite the issue it is south of the border. 
There, one can purchase social security numbers easily, and quite frankly, the 
public access to government databases, is much easier to obtain.

>>To some, reading  e-mail with the annoying gpg/pgp block before the
>>beginning, is as annoying (to  at least one individual),
> 
> It sounds like those individuals need a new email reader because, as you
> pointed out Steve, signed emails are not uncommon on public mailing lists.

They're uncommon on public e-mail lists, not uncommon on Geek related e-mail 
lists... ;)

>>BTW, I don't think you mentioned if you mind news url's posted here or
>>not...?
> 
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.user-groups.linux.tolug/2888

Thanks, my 'find' on my local spool, works fine to. :)

You didn't mention, urls of news items, I had checked before I asked...
you didn't exclude, it though. No matter, it not a big issue, it appears most 
don't seem to mind news urls being posted. :))

Whatever, (yawn) time to go to bed...
-- 
Best Regards,

Steve
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml