[HOT] Computer Security / GPG - First do no harm

Peter Wendorff wendorff at uni-paderborn.de
Mon Jan 28 19:04:14 GMT 2013


Hi Trevor.
I agree that this is an issue, but what should GPG be good for in a 
public mailinglist everybody might join without any barrier?
Anyone from any government, regime, rebell group, terrorists group or 
whatever wherever and in whose point of view ever might join the list 
and therefore get the decrypted emails.
Using GPG here does not keep the individuals reading/writing mails safe 
as long as you use E-Mail as a medium and don't close the group to a 
trusted p2p group (where everybody trusts everybody to exchange a key).

Of course:
Nothing refering to individuals in any case where that might be an issue 
should be posted publicly over the Mailinglist, but encryption in 
general would strictly contradict the openness of everybody-can-join, 
which is one core feature of the osm mailing list system, this list 
included.

regards
Peter

Am 28.01.2013 17:37, schrieb Trevor Ellermann:
> Hey All,
>
> As HOT talks about getting involved in Syria I want to take a moment
> to talk about security. Email is unencrypted by default and very easy
> to intercept. The Syrian regime is known to be snooping on all
> internet traffic in Syria. They have arrested, tortured and killed
> people and in some cases their families based on emails they have
> intercepted.
>
> I want to highlight the public-ness of this email list. You don't even
> have to intercept an email to read it and with the blog post, we
> likely have brought attention to it. So before you post anything at
> all to this list about Syria, please think first about the safety of
> the people on the ground over there.
>
> Here is a page with information on basic computer security. I highly
> recommend that everyone at least glance at it and hopefully learn how
> to use gpg.
>
> http://www.patternsinthevoid.net/security.html
>
> A separate email account for encrypted communications is sometimes
> preferred. I recommend riseup for that (https://riseup.net/en).
>
> If you have any questions, thoughts or comments please don't hesitate to ask.
>
> --T
>
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