Who Me? Paranoid? Naaaah...

Hmmmm...

I'm beginning to wonder if we shouldn't someday be able to run public email
in a sort of "parallel universe," an entirely separate mail system complete
with built-in RSA encryption on every piece of mail. That way, we would no
longer rely on the Internet, which, unless I am completely off the mark,
basically still exists at the pleasure of ARPA and could be completely
infiltrated and controlled by the NSA for all we know.

Along similar lines, has anyone heard the latest status on the gigabytes of
email generated by the Bush White House which are currently in danger of
being erased before anyone can get a peek at them? Imagine the damning
evidence that exists in those documents! I had heard something about a
voluntary freeze on the erasure until the matter can be decided in some
Federal Court, but that strikes me like suing your local City Government in
Municipal Court after being hit by a Municipal Bus - Bush's cronies will
probably invoke some executive priviledge and weasel off with 'em. I wonder
if such stuff will ever be released under the Freedom of Information Act
(probably not in our lifetimes, but just the threat would make me happy)?
Hey, a guy can _dream_ can't he?

  dave

>Hmmmm...
>
>I'm beginning to wonder if we shouldn't someday be able to run public email
>in a sort of "parallel universe," an entirely separate mail system complete
>with built-in RSA encryption on every piece of mail. That way, we would no
>longer rely on the Internet, which, unless I am completely off the mark,
>basically still exists at the pleasure of ARPA and could be completely
>infiltrated and controlled by the NSA for all we know.

Personaly (mostly before pgp) I used to set up direct uucp connections
to people I *had* have secure email with (I once had some sensitive email
intercepted thus causing *much* trouble for me).  

Since alot of my friends have unix boxes (Sun/SCO/386bsd/etc...) uucp
is alot easer.



			-Pete

PS: If anyone wants a uucp connection send me email

PPS: once I get my sendmail.cf cleaned up I can add people to my domain
	and I will set up a remailer.

>> That way, we would no longer rely on the Internet, which, unless I am
>> completely off the mark, basically still exists at the pleasure of
>> ARPA and could be completely infiltrated and controlled by the NSA for
>> all we know.

You are completely off the mark.  Much of the Internet is privately
owned and controlled, and most of what is government controlled
(including the backbone) is controlled by the NSF, not DARPA.  What is
military controlled is essentially an island.  None of our packets
traverse that part of the net.  (Of course, the NSA could still be
watching our packets, and there is much speculation that they actively
do so on international links.  But the domestic links are not owned by
the DoD directly.)

And what parallel universe would you use.  The Telcos?  The FBI
wiretap proposal should show you how good an idea that is.  Unless you
want to run your own physically secure wire (intractable), you need
encryption, so you might as well use the Internet.  Even if it is
NSA-controlled, which I doubt.

		Marc