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

Igor Chudov @ home ichudov at algebra.com
Tue Apr 15 00:21:02 PDT 1997


Eric Nystrom wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 14 Apr 1997 ichudov at algebra.com wrote:
> 
> > Multiuser Unix Security == No Security.
> > 
> > Your users may have illusions, but not true security.
> > 
> > First thing I'd suggest is to explain them that nothing that goes through 
> > that central unix machine is truly secure.
> 
> 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 would not call it truly "utopian". There is not much that's needed to
achieve reasonable personal security, protecting from attacks from the
Internet  -- an individual (pesonal) computer system that offers no
internet services. Could be bought for $300 or less.

	- Igor.






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