| |
|
I've been busy lately, so this is a little rough - and probably rife with errors - but I just wanted to make sure I'm getting everybody's questions answered.
Excuse the format - I'm cutting and pasting from a plain text document, and I don't want to correct all the spacing issues. It should still be readable.
Q: "What is PGP?"
A: PGP is an abbreviation for Pretty Good Privacy, a freely available
cryptography package originally contructed by one Phillip Zimmerman of
Internet fame. Its major hallmarks lie in usability and availability.
It follows what's called a Public-Key Encryption Scheme, and can be
downloaded from a variety of locations on the internet, in a variety of
formats, for a variety of platforms (or operating systems).
Q: "What's 'Public Key Encryption'?"
A: To give a simple, pragmatic answer, it's kind of like this : Your
public key is like your entry in the phone book. It's way for people to
find you and send you private communications. Encryption is based around
what we call a key-pair. A key-pair consists of a public key - which you
distribute, to allow people to send you private messages, and a private
key, which you keep in a safe place for the sake of decrypting messages
sent to you via your public key. Essentially, it's a chunk of data that
provides you with your own completely unique encryption scheme. It looks
like a block of non-sensical characters, and it's the other half of the
mystery in this particular cryptography setup.
Q: "Do I need to be a geek to use PGP?"
A: Not at all. PGP not complex to use, and nowadays, free versions of PGP
offer plug-ins to interface with common communications applications,
permitting you to greatly simplify the process of encryption and
decryption. MIT's distribution of PGP includes plugins for modern
versions of Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and Eudora's mail client.
After installing PGP on an ordinary computer operating any of these
applications, you'll find an additional option at your disposal. For
instance, after installing the MIT distribution of PGP on a Windows 2000
machine operating Outlook 2000, I had an extra pull-down menu in addition
to the typical 'File', 'Edit', and 'View'-style menus at the top - only
this one is for encrypting and decrypting e-mails.
Q: "What do I need to do to use PGP?"
A: You'll need to install it, and generate your key-pair and passphrase.
Your passphrase can be no shorter than eight characters, and the more
complicated it is, the more secure it is. Once it's been installed,
you'll want to distribute your public key to ensure your availability. In
order to send a private, encrypted message to someone, you would require
their public key. In the event that you run any of the mail clients
mentioned above, all of this is an incredibly simple process. If you do
not, you can always write your e-mail is a plain-text document, use your
PGP application to encrypt it, then cut-and-paste the results into an
e-mail. You might call this the old-school method.
Q: "Are you really sure no one can read PGP-encrypted mail?"
A: Absolutely not. The point is made in many FAQs like this one that
whatever the NSA can or cannot do is not going to be considered our
business. They could be cracking PGP routinely, and we wouldn't know
about it. The fact remains, however, that a world full of talent to rival
the NSA in mathematics (like large-number factoring) and computer sciences
has been out there, attempting to crack PGP, for many years. No one has
publically had any success. The only semi-feasible claim I've heard to
this end was that the NSA convinced the original author, Mr. Zimmerman,
that he would have to install key-escrow style backdoors to avoid the
threat of future prosecution. If in fact this had occured, someone else
would've found the backdoor - almost without question. That's what geeks
do. It's possible, but highly unlikely.
Q : "Can PGP be used with web-based mail, such as Hotmail?"
A : Absolutely. PGP can encrypt any block of text. Unless MSN feels like
building a PGP engine into their already complicated site, it's not likely
to be automatic, but it's not all that difficult, either. The
cut-and-paste method mentioned above suits this operation.
Q : "I've heard that encryption is best if everything is encrypted, not
just the sensitive material.. is it automated so you can encrypt
everything without hassle?"
A : Well, yes and no. Let's say you're sending an internet e-mail. There
are two critical parts in said e-mail. A header, which looks like this :
>From root Wed Jun 20 10:15:46 2001
Return-Path: <root@localhost.localdomain>
Received: (from root@localhost)
by localhost.localdomain (8.11.2/8.11.2) id [Blanked]
for root; Wed, 20 Jun 2001 10:15:46 -0700
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 10:15:46 -0700
Message-Id: <200106201715.f5KHFk615631@localhost.localdomain>
From: root@localhost.localdomain (Anacron)
To: root@localhost.localdomain
Subject: [This Is A Header]
And a body, which contains the message you're trying to send.
You can't encrypt the header. Mail relays (sometimes called nodes) between you and your destination must be able to interpret this header to know what to do with the mail. Encrypting this bit of information would be much like encrypting your destination and return address on an ordinary piece of mail - it would make it quite difficult for the postman to do his job. However, the rest of the message, from hello to goodbye, can easily be encrypted. The only caveat here is that Carnivore, the
FBI's mail-snooping system, is rumored to sniff for headers. If you're on
someone's list somewhere, the interception of encrypted mail going to and
from you could ratchet it up your suspicion-o-meter.
Q : "How do I convince my non-geek friends to use PGP?"
A : Usually, the most successful tactic is to demonstrate how easily it
would be snoop someone's private communications. There are numerous ways
to do this ; But nearly as effective, if you haven't got the resources to
demonstrate it yourself, would be material explaining how Carnivore works.
Carnivore is the FBI's mail interception engine, placed at critical
'nodes' throughout the internet. It scans only the header (supposedly)
for subject-line string matches, and matches the to and from fields. You
wouldn't want your mail titled 'Da Bomb' to be read by a curious agent
with no sense of a humor and an assumption of the worst, would you? And
if you run a business? If you send private - very private - mail to loved
ones based in remote locations? Cellular telephone networks use basic
(granted - terribly basic) encyryption methodologies that folks take for
granted almost every day. Would you want your e-mail to go completely
unprotected?
Start with a group of friends and aquaintances, and agree to mail each
other encrypted messages as much as possible. Get in the habit. Start
posting your public key at the bottom of e-mails and newsgroup postings,
so that strangers who are interested in your points can e-mail your
privately. Just get started.
Q : "Isn't it difficult to use? How do I get friends who spend very
little time around computers to use something so complicated?"
A : It's not all that complicated. Download the MIT distribution and
install it right now. Play around with it. Treat it like a game, get
comfortable with it - generate keys and passphrases for fun - don't use
them for secure communications, just experiment. Find someone to send
encrypted messages to, exchange public keys, and get familiar with the
patterns. Show your friends how easy it is.
Q : "What about this passphrase and key stuff? Isn't that difficult to
manage?"
A : It really depends on you. I've heard from individuals who keep their
secret key on a read-only floppy disk, hidden and unavailable. They
never store it on their hard-drive because they fear it could be found,
and they seal their passphrases in envelopes, kept away from both their
homes and their offices. In this manner, even someone raiding your home
couldn't read your private communications. You could also keep it on your
'desktop' (if you operate a windows variant), with your passphrase written
down on a sticky-pad next to your computer. It's still more privacy than
you have now (if you do not use PGP). I once heard it said that all
security exists on a sliding scale - Between privacy and usability. The
easier it is to cope with, the more casual your protection is. The more
elaborate and inconvenient your system is, the more difficult it will be to
penetrate your methods.
Q : "What about other platforms, like Palm OS?"
A : Not at this time. Even if a version of PGP was developed for the
Palm, it wouldn't be a great idea. You'd have no choice but to store your
secret key locally (to your Palm), and the Palm OS has little-to-nil in
the way of permissions and attributes for it's primitive file system.
While it's effective at what it does, you can't really put security on
that list [at this time].
Q : "What about other documents? What about pictures, Word documents, or
other bits of [non-text] data?"
A : No problem. It won't be as automated and simplistic as sending e-mail
through a plugin, but it'll work. You may want to become familiar with
the command-line options before you venture into this territory, though.
( And what about Echelon? )
Q : "What does the government say about Echelon?"
A : Which government? The US says nothing, literally. No confirmation, no
denial, no comment. Other countries, however, including Australia, New
Zealand, and the UK are more vocal about Echelon's practices. High-level officials who have toured Menwith Hill, an infamous Echelon installation, have claimed that information is being tagged based on potential economic importance. Mostly, governments are quiet about this. After all, it's hard to look good no matter what you say - if you've got a listening post
on your soil, and Echelon does what it seems to do, you're stuck with
somes serious PR work, weather or not you talk. The US seems to have
adopted the belief that they're going to look bad either way, so they may
as well not disclose their trade secrets. Ex-NSA employees have tried to
cash in for their retirement by 'disclosing secrets' about Echelon, but
the most comprehensive and convincing report I've ever seen was the EU's
evaluation.
Q : "What doesn't Echelon monitor?"
A : It would seem very little. Naturally, we have to entertain the
possibility that Echelon is partially hype - a means of convincing a
control population that the controlling group is omniscient. This helps
immensely in preventing organization of rebellious factions. However, it
must also be acknowledged that not only is Echelon possible, it's terribly
real, according to many eye-witness reports. The most important things to
keep in mind, in my opinion, are the following.
1. Echelon is a telecommunications surveillence system. It is not tied in
with CCTV systems, or anything else of the sort. Big brother is not yet
capable fo watching you (all the time). Unless you're being watched by
other means, your coffee shop conversations, your pillow talk, and your
friday night parties are all still your business.
2. Echelon tags based on keywords, sender, and recipient. If you're not
in trouble, and you're not talking about Boeing, Microsoft, STOA, bombs,
revolution, rebellion, INFOSEC, Espionage, SIGINT, COMINT, Defcon,
Hacking, Assassination, or PGP [Ha-Ha-Ha], you ought to be fine.
Naturally, the real keyword list is a bit more comprehensive, and is in
actuality contextual - it tries to understand what you're saying,
in proper context, and does not just blindly tag every instance of a
triggered keyword.
3. Echelon cannot monitor private encrypted networks. If a private
network were to be built, using standard technologies for Layer-1
(physical medium and specification), but encrypting at Layer-5 (before the
information is handed off to network, transport, and data-link processes),
providing the encryption was purely of original invention, and
encapsulated as many standard processes as possible within its operation,
Echelon would be unable to snoop your business. Naturally, it would
try - your 'standard Layer-1' is probably telephone networks - from
DS0's (or regular capacity telephone lines) to DS1's (T1 capacity), and is
still susceptible to the aforementioned monitoring practices. However, if
everything that is transported over that network is encrypted prior to
being transported - including the equivelent of 'headers' with sender and
destination 'addresses' (of any sort, from IP to the kind you find in a
mail header), and 'packet' or 'datagram' contents (the logical
organization of data before it's transmitted over an encapsulated
data-link,
and then over a physical wire), you can ensure almost complete privacy. Naturally, your routing nodes would have to decrypt these headers, which adds overhead - however, it effectively prevents snooping on the wire.
In other words, it's possible to communicate privately, within the boundaries of the law. |
|
|
