sorsa@cc.helsinki.fi (11/19/90)
In article <'4&^6&|@rpi.edu>, kyoto@pawl.rpi.edu (Jesse N. Schell) writes: > questions. Should the owners of a BBS be allowed to read your mail? > The only answer I can see to this is that the owners of the BBS should > make their policy clear...If they are going to read your messages, you > should know about it. I can see one day soon, however, people are going to > want a BBS where the owners guarantee that they will not read private > messages. This would be difficult to implement, but not impossible... > Is the US government going to have a US mail Email network in the > future? Will we trust them with it? How will we know if the FBI is reading > our mail? I don't think it could work... I mean, they can still tap our > phones and open our mail if they want, but it is so much easier to > intercept an electronic message... Anyone familiar with data encryption knows a message can be crypted so that it's practically impossible ( even for the FBI ) to decrypt them without the key. Of course, there's still the problem of how the key(s) are kept secret - would you keep your keycode in a piece of paper in your wallet or on your PC's hard disk ? Wouldn't be surprised if a similar "computer crimes" shoul arise against "protected" BBS's as there are now against computer systems. Greetins from far [ unsafe ] smurf -> extern [volatile] void universe() Mika Sorsa
asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin "the Chipmunk" Sylvain) (11/29/90)
In article <4034.2747f1e2@cc.helsinki.fi> sorsa@cc.helsinki.fi writes: > > Anyone familiar with data encryption knows a message can be crypted so that > it's practically impossible ( even for the FBI ) to decrypt them without the > key. Of course, there's still the problem of how the key(s) are kept secret - > would you keep your keycode in a piece of paper in your wallet or on your PC's > hard disk ? Wouldn't be surprised if a similar "computer crimes" shoul arise > against "protected" BBS's as there are now against computer systems. The best way to keep keys secret is to communicate them privately. The best way to do this and continuously change the keys is to arrange (privately) to use some information that both parties have access to. For example, both parties can get a copy of the nationwide 800 directory. That's a perfectly natural thing to have lying about the house. Agree in advance that every third odd day, we change to the page number equal to this page plus the day of the week. Then go down to the line equal to the day of the month. Anytime we happen to meet again privately, we change it to something else. (Oops, the FBI surgically implanted a microphone in your larynx without your knowledge! There goes that idea!) -- asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin "the Chipmunk" Sylvain) ========================= Opinions are Mine, Typos belong to /usr/ucb/vi "We're sorry, but the reality you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the value of pi, or see your SysOp for assistance." {}hplabs!felix!asylvain ================================================