E-Mail Encryption: Why Isn't Everyone Doing It?

[John Goerzen]

On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 02:58:27PM -0600, Rustad, Aaron wrote:

[replying to Ed Suominen]

> When I have to send or show something sensitive to a colleague or an 
> existing client, I try to do so via a tunnelled connection using my 
> Privaria software. I wrote it for ease of use, and it's literally a 
> one-click connection (no Amazon, this ain't online shopping...) once 
> you've set it up. Perhaps the 25,000 downloads of the software since its 
> May 2002 initial release says something about the value people place on 
> encryption that's (relatively) easy to use.

I really see no difference in ease of use between this and e-mailing people,
other than the fact that you downplay key verification and provide no
coverage for web of trust while likely insecurely passing passphrases
between processes and providing no support for cross-platform communication.

Either way, you still have to set up a public key.  In fact, I maintain that
e-mailing is easier because you don't have to obtain an FTP account
somewhere.

-- John