The Beeb How-To on Secure Communication
David Blunkett was forced to resign after several comprimising emails were uncovered by an inquiry set up by himself. This Beeb article tries to analyse other ways to send sensitive information to someone.
- emails: too dangerous. Everybody knows now that sending an email is like sending a postcard to a friend. “[People] know that their corporate e-mail systems trap all of the information they send”, according to an expert. Well, apparently, they are not quite aware yet since people still get caught from time to time.
- instant messaging: mouarf. They “allow users to have “real-time” conversations with no record”. But it is not that great, apparently, because “There is software available which stores instant messenger conversations”. Yes, indeed. That would be the instant messaging systems themselves, wouldn’t it?
- encryption systems: “You can get software that allows you to encrypt e-mails by passing specific keys between yourself and whoever you’re communicating with”. Okay, let’s imagine that we’re talking about a public key, here. your recipient can share with whoever he or she wants. The problem? “Generally there are quite a few restrictions on what people can download and install on their PCs. I doubt whether Mr Blunkett, for example, would simply be able to install encryption software on his desktop computer”. Bizarre. You would think that someone with a position as critical as Home Secretary should be allowed to make use of encryption systems: terrorists (I am thinking about the IRA, for instance, which had the gathering of intelligence on potential targets down to an art) would be somewhat happy to gather private information about ministers. Maybe Santa should bring him another laptop and a USB key.
- Webmail, such as Yahoo! or Hotmail: mouarf. By checking the connection logs, the account would be very easy to trace and the webmail hosting company could have been asked to hand the content of the inbox to justice.
- Phone and SMS: how many burglars, terrorists, etc. have been arrested because they had foolishly used their own cell-phones?
So the only sensible way of protecting communication (encryption) has been dismissed as being awkward or impossible. And as long as people think so, people like Mr Blunkett will get caught…
