Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 13:22:07 -0600 From: Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> To: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: good replacement for open office Message-ID: <20071005192207.GC56296@demeter.hydra> In-Reply-To: <20071006170617.Y43849@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> References: <1191546543.61533.202.camel@pinot.fmjassoc.com> <470719CF.7030502@charter.net> <4707205D.6090108@pacific.net.sg> <47079D01.7000502@charter.net> <20071006170617.Y43849@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl>
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On Sat, Oct 06, 2007 at 05:07:45PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote: > nobody intelligent (or completely not caring about it) use any of big > public mail/news/etc services. There are two separate concerns here. 1. General Privacy: If you're concerned with your documents and communications being collected, indexed, and scanned for patterns and flagged terms along with billions of other documents and communications, without any specific attention to yours in particular, you're right -- don't use "public", web-based services. 2. Specific Privacy: If you're concerned with someone cracking security on your account, targeting your communications for electronic eavesdropping, and similarly making use of the "public" nature of a service like that for nefarious intent, you're probably among the millions of computer users who are carefully locking the front door while leaving the bay windows and garage door wide open. Are you using public key encryption systems like OpenPGP to secure your email? Are you encrypting word processor documents when you send email? Are you using a text-based mail user agent instead of reading XHTML "rich" emails in a GUI mail client? Are you anonymizing communications via the Tor network? What exactly are you doing to avoid leaving yourself at least as wide open with plain text transmission of data as you would be with a web-based, SSL-encrypted mail service? You're probably even transmitting login data to a web server in clear text. Now . . . I know this is the freebsd-questions mailing list, and many of you are running mail servers locally, and otherwise mitigating these risks. On the other hand, simply telling people that they'll be safer avoiding web-based services without explaining that this is only true if they also pay significant attention to securing their other communication and collaboration tools might be considered dishonest, or at least irresponsible. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] Eat your crow early, while it's young and tender. Don't wait until it's old and tough.
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