I must admit that I have thought very little about data encryption and securing my electronic mail until reading "Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government--Saving Privacy in the Digital Age" by Steven Levy. It seems obvious that big business and government agencies would have a strong desire to want to secure their data and communications. I am pretty certain that the Kelloggs company does not want the recipe to their Famous Amos cookies to be stolen by some hi-tech hacker. So they secure their network and data. For sure the Government must secure its data and communications or risk giving away the nation's most importnat secrets. So, why would a private citizen, somebody who doesn't have top secret recipes or national security information to hide, need or want to use encryption?
After reading from Levy, I believe a better question would be, why wouldn't a private citizen want encryption? Currently, when I send an email from my google account, it is not secure. This means that my ISP has access to that email, not to mention the dozens of computers the message passes through on its way to its final destination. At each of those computers, it is possible to make a copy of that email to be scanned later. There are programs that can scan thousands upon thousands of emails a day looking for certain words, social security numbers or credit card numbers. A good way to think of encryption is like an envelope for a written letter. You probably wouldn't send that letter without first sticking it in an envelope and sealing it. Why? Because you don't want anybody to be able to read it's contents. So why wouldn't you do the same with your email?
I guess you might say to yourself, "well I do not really have that much to hide so why would anybody want to sort through all the emails I write?" That is true. Your correspondence to your friend about what a great time you had on your vacation seems pretty innocent. You tell her all about the restaurants you went to and the tours you went on. Then you mention briefly how you stayed out a bit too late one night at the local pub and maybe had a bit too much too drink. Just like the teacher who posted a photo of herself with a beer in here hand on Facebook, she also thought that her posting was private and could do her no harm. After the photo was leaked, she lost her job. Do you want to take that risk? So, just like you buy that extra insurance for that expensive new Iphone you purchased, using encryption is the piece of mind knowing that all of your data is secure from prying eyes and you are safe from any unintended consequences.
Reference: http://actionamerica.org/privacy/encrypt.html
You accurately point out that information contained in our private emails is not private at all. And you ask a very important question: Why wouldn’t a private citizen want encryption? I think the answer is probably that, like you and I, most people have not given a lot of thought to data encryption. It seems so cloak-and-dagger. I think we make the mistake in thinking that if it were important, it would be one of those things our firewall or antivirus or email provider would do for us automatically, and free of charge. I’m not even sure my email provider offers encryption. I spent a better part of an hour looking through their services without finding anything. I consider myself a little bit of a techie but I have no earthly idea how an average citizen would go about enabling encryption on a laptop, netbook, or smart phone.
ReplyDeleteLike you mention, big businesses have their reasons for needing high levels of data security. But ordinary citizens have rights to privacy also. Old School wiretapping and mail tampering are violations with steep penalties in our nation – it is time that we update our expectations to match the dilemmas faced in the 21st century.