Cryptography

PGP

Do you have the ability to send emails and files securely? Would you know how to? Do you want it?

Even if you don't think you'll need it, go get PGP (from their international site) anyway.

When you've got it, you could send me secure mail using my public key. If you do, could you use the address crypto@lowfield.co.uk? Thanks!

Visit the key server.

"Building Confidence In Electronic Commerce"

The governement recently issued a document seeking comments on possible ways of making sure that electronic communication is secure, but open to scrutiny by anyone with a warrant.

I've got my own opinions as to whether this is a good idea or not, but you can read the report.

You can read a report from the BBC News website.

You can chuckle at the way the NTK lads phrased it (19 March);

Stop! Oh, yes, wait a minute Mr Postman: 2 weeks before the DTI deadline might sound like an odd time to launch your commercial Trusted Third Party crypto service, but the ROYAL MAIL seem pretty convinced that the DTI won't bring back that key escrow requirement ("they see each other at a lot of conferences"). Then again, though they're not hoarding keys themselves, their site makes some faintly escrow-like claims ("Key backup and recovery is a straight forward commercial necessity" - ViaCode FAQ) which may be fine for businesses, but tricky to establish as a widely used standard. The Royal Mail is controlled by the DTI, so maybe it's a stealthy back-door attempt to convince the companies of Britain that hey, it's *cool* to expose your privates...

https://www.royalmail.co.uk/atwork/viacode/service/authent.htm

-"...can prevent data being changed without notice by hackers"
http://www.fipr.org/sfs3.html
- "Scrambling For Safety III", this Tue, LSE, free! (not called "Trust Us To Have A Third Party", for obvious reasons)

The Parliamentary committee discussing this bill is the Trade and Industry Select Committee - is your MP on it?

Just make sure that you don't lose the right to send secure emails before you even knew you had any.

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