Re: Introducing newbies to encryption (was: Re: anonymous credit)

[ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home)]

William S. Frantz wrote:
> > It's absolutely true that nothing on a centralized Unix machine is truly 
> > secure.  However, is abandoning all pretenses of crypto and security in 
> > favor of holding out for a utopian ideal really the best solution?  Does 
> > using encryption for email on multiuser machines actually hurt the cause 
> > of the security community in the long run?
> > 
> > (I'm not asking rhetorical questions here -- I'm truly looking for some 
> > thoughts on this.)
> 
> Since security is not binary (i.e. talking of secure and insecure is
> nonsense.  You must talk of more or less secure.), you have to look at the
> threats.  If you are sending email from a multi-user Unix machine, encrypting
> it removes some threats (e.g. wiretaping) without adding any new threats.
> (There are still the continuing parade of UNIX holes based on the C string
> model.)
> 
> I would say that if users don't think they are safe, just think they are
> a bit safer, then encrypting on a multi-user machine is a good thing because
> it is more secure than not encrypting.  It is still less secure than a 
> single-user system with Tempest shielding.

right, the real problem is that users start thinking that they are
really safe, and start doing dumb things.

	- Igor.