Why Johnny Still Can't Encrypt: Evaluating the Usability of a Modern PGP Client

Post by tmalsburg2 » Sat, Nov 07, 2015, 11:30 PM UTC

aevernon wrote: post #96

Decade wrote: post #46

Backwards compatibility is the killer. The whole design of PGP is to be the envelope to make email private, versus the plaintext postcard that everybody can read. It works with existing servers and existing mail clients. The biggest Snowden revelation is the importance of metadata. Just knowing whom you talk to, when, is frequently enough to compromise the parties involved. You might be doing something legal now, but…

In these discussions about the importance of metadata, I'm surprised that Bitmessage is rarely mentioned. The Bitmessage protocol is decentralized, trustless, and hides metadata such as the sender and receiver of messages.

Post by baudehlo » Sat, Nov 07, 2015, 11:40 PM UTC

cbhl wrote: post #58

baudehlo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMTP with TLS doesn't leak any metadata except the connecting IP address. And with DMARC you can mandate it. Calls for whole new protocols for email are usually made by people who don't understand the email ecosystem as it currently stands.

But SMTP with TLS is opportunistic -- and if we're talking "national state secrets" it's trivial for a state to MITM the connection and do a TLS downgrade attack.

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Nov 07, 2015, 11:52 PM UTC

will_pseudonym wrote: post #102

Spooky23 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't agree with this assessment. Personally, the NSA or pervasive surveillance use case is overblown and a low risk threat to me. Anyone reasonably competent conducting the most cursory of investigations could figure out who I do business with in hours. The NSA boogeyman with omniscient network surveillance capability will come up with ways to find the source/destination of obfuscates messages anyway. Sensitive da…

What about the chilling effect? People change their behaviors when they know they're being watched. It goes completely against the spirit of the US Constitution. How can I pursue happiness if I'm worried that what I write will be a liability in the future? EDIT: grammar

Post by Sephr » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 12:33 AM UTC

nocarrier wrote: post #95

late2part wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. And now they encrypt all the inter-data center traffic. Question: Is that done on an end-to-end basis? Or do they encrypt the links between data centers? I want to encrypt a 10g ethernet and all the solutions look quite expensive. Has anyone done high speed encryption (i.e. 10gbps/1500 byte packets) with strongswan or similar?

You have to encrypt the transport at the application layer when you're talking about the scale of major internet companies--there are so many links going out of each datacenter that it's not feasible to do IPsec or similar lower level encryption. There aren't many hardware devices sold that can do the encryption at the 10-100+ Gbps speeds that datacenter links use (if any), and it's much easier to amortize the encryp…

Post by StavrosK » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 12:55 AM UTC

baudehlo wrote: post #103

cbhl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But SMTP with TLS is opportunistic -- and if we're talking "national state secrets" it's trivial for a state to MITM the connection and do a TLS downgrade attack.

Not if the receiving smtp server implements DMARC