Andy Rabagliati <andyr@inmos.com> (05/12/91)
What we are seeing with Prodigy, Lotus Marketplace, Internet, UUnet, and the like is a nascent industry. When people start selling information - even selling the organization of available information, like phone numbers, we should think of encryption early on. I am sure Prodigy does not knowingly pry for information, but we, the net, know what it could do. Encryption is relatively cheap. It deals with many of the potential problems -- wire-tapping, etc. Why, I could set up a computer service, with a fast, distributed database system, where the data that passed publicly, the requests, the password algorithm, billing info, was encrypted. Maybe the information is commercially sensitive private company data; even I cant read it off the disk because it is locally encrypted before writing to any permanent storage. Computer power makes these cheap options. The issue then becomes clearer -- I am selling an organizer, someone else is selling/using the information. Many people confuse the capabilities of computers with the information itself. They are both issues that need addressing. Cheers, Andy