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Written by Tony Phelps
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Thursday, 17 November 2005 |
If you are encrypting information, you must be trying to hide something. Guilty until proven innocent.
At least, that is likely to be the initial reaction, a bit like people
you know who are whispering nearby just have to be whispering about
you. Of course, it isn’t necessarily so. And with encryption, it’s
really a case of making things secure just like you do at home. You
don’t lock your doors because people will find out you’re up to no good
inside (though you might if you are!!), but rather to make sure that
people who shouldn’t be looking and who have bad intentions don’t get
the chance.
Encryption is most suited to emails. When you send your email off into
the internet, you have no control over how it gets to its destination.
Worse than that, at every point along its journey as it is passed from
server to server, it can be copied and opened without you having any
idea. And worse still, the standard email is passed along in open text,
as easy to read as a postcard.
There are all sorts of legitimate reasons you might want to keep the
contents of an email private. You may be discussing an embarrassing
medical condition. You may be sorting out financial problems. You may
be setting up a delicate business deal. You may be letting off steam
about a boss or family member. The consequences of any of these
becoming public knowledge could be very unwelcome.
Encryption is a way to put your emails into an “envelope” so that only
the recipient can open them and read them. There are, as usual, several
alternatives for encrypting emails & other electronic files.
Up-to-date versions are getting easier to use and more integrated, for
example the widely used PGP application (www.pgp.com) is free for
non-commercial use and enables encryption with the click of a button
right inside Microsoft Outlook (amongst other email software). There’s
a bit of learning involved, and both the sender and the receiver need
the same encryption software, but once it’s setup it is
straightforward. Check with Vanuatu’s IT trainers to see if they can
help.
We started hiding the content of letters hundreds of years ago. It’s about time that it was normal practice for email. |
