[Nottingham] email (Was: Hello Everyone)

[ForkBombFluf]

Dear Newbies:

Welcome to the list.

Despite the overly-pendantic twists and turns this list sometime takes, 
and apart from our occasional (usually friendly) bickering on-list, we are 
actually a nice helpful bunch of people once you get to know us...  So 
please don't let any of our guff put you off too much.

(deal with the top posting, Martin, I'm not quite finished yet --> )

On Tue, 10 Jun 2008, Martin wrote:

> That's where perhaps we should all move to digitally signing all emails.
>
> Perhaps we should also all use personal and group encryption so that
> only the intended recipients can read the mail in the first place.

If we've already been marked as too lazy to snip out fluff in our e-mail 
replies, do you really think we're going to go to the trouble to set up 
e-mail encryption?  Honestly.  It's like trying to badger your staff into 
doing their own back-ups; the easiest way to make them do it is to 
transparently do it for them.  Failing that, make it sooooo inrcredibly 
straightforward, simple, and fun that they just want to.

> That would stop a lot of silliness from spam snooping, Marketing
> snooping, or just plain simply losing mail.

How so?  If they're snooping anyway, what's stopping them from grabbing 
your public key and encrypting a nice advertizment for some choice 
medication for you?  Or would you just never accept any mail from sources 
who don't sign in return with a public key that is already known to you? 
(haven't messed with this stuff in awhile, sorry if that's a no-brainer)
And anwyay, how would it stop e-mail getting lost?

> How many people go to the trouble of setting up email signing and public
> key encryption of their mails?

Andy and I used to do this years ago, but it was mostly to obfuscate the 
smutty nature of the messages contained within so they would still pass 
through the mail filters unabated.

(Hey, you asked!)

> How many even have a gpg key?

We used PGP keys, but I think we've probably lost them down the back of 
the sofa long ago...

Cheers,

-Stef (Newbie of many years)