NPR : E-Mail Encryption Rare in Everyday Use

[Ben Laurie]

Ed Gerck wrote:
> Ben Laurie wrote:
>> Ed Gerck wrote:
>>> This IS one of the sticky points ;-) If postal mail would work this way,
>>> you'd have to ask me to send you an envelope before you can send me
>>> mail.
>>> This is counter-intuitive to users.
>>
>> We have keyservers for this (my chosen technology was PGP). If you liken
>> their use to looking up an address in an address book, this isn't hard
>> for users to grasp.
> 
> Well, the observation (as I hear the NPR piece) is that it HAS been hard
> to grasp.
> 
> Further, the comparison with "looking up an address in an address book" is
> also not even close to the level of hassle that users need to go through
> with
> PGP (and PKI). Please google "Why Johnny Can't Encrypt: A Usability
> Evaluation
> of PGP 5.0" and comments in the Usability section of
> <http://email-security.net/papers/pki-pgp-ibe.htm/>

I don't use PGP - for email encryption I use enigmail, and getting
missing keys is as hard as pressing the "get missing keys" button.

>>> Your next questions could well be how do you know my key is really
>>> mine...
>>> how do you know it was not revoked ...all of which are additional sticky
>>> points.
>>
>> For revocation, keyservers again. 
> 
> Last time I looked, a lot of PGP keys in keyservers are useless because
> users
> (most often) simply forgot their passphrase...

I guess I don't send people like that much encrypted email.

>> If I cared whether it was really yours
>> (I don't), then I'd check the signatures, or verify the fingerprint
>> out-of-band.
> 
> Out-of-band is good. But, again, the hassle factor...

Most of my encryption is done simply because its a good thing to do. If
the wrong guy is reading it I'll find out in the end. For the few where
I really care I'm prepared to go through that hassle.

>>> In the postal mail world, how'd you know the envelope is really from
>>> me or
>>> that it is secure?
>>
>> I don't.
> 
> Yes, but since you don't need to ask for one... no problem. You just use
> your
> own envelope to send postal mail to me.

Really? I just write "Ed Gerck" on an envelope and it gets to you? I
doubt it. Presumably I have to do all sorts of hard and user-unfriendly
things to find out and verify your address.

> The PKI problem is that it runs
> backwards
> to normal mail flow -- you need to ask me for my envelope before you can
> send me a
> secure message. IBE doesn't have this problem, even though it has key
> escrow.

If you handled your keys properly I would not need to ask you for anything.

-- 
http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html           http://www.links.org/

"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he
doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff

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