text p.d. cryptosystems for email

this is probably a faq, but pardon me, since this is my first mail to
the cypherpunks list.  the problem is this: i once worked for a
(nameless) finance company that had pseudo-wizard-dorkos for sa's, and
a gravitationally-challenged boss that routinely read employees' (ie.
*my*) personal email.  i knew this because he asked me specific
questions regading the email subjects.  both he and the dorkos
relished this ability and probably got some power trip from it.

to prevent further abuse, i resorted to using crypt and uuencode 
when sending personal email to friends.  i found mr. megaton and his 
pseudo-wizards complaining about this.  they were having a heck 
of a time trying to decrypt my mail, esp. since they could not
easily recognize uuencode output. (hence the pseudo-wizard label).

however, friends told me that (1) crypt is easily compromised, and 
(2) not all unix sites have crypt available anyway.  are there 
text-based alternates to crypt, such that i don't have to use 
uuencode or btoa to mail encrypted text?   

as an aside, i bought an account from panix.com in order to further
safeguard my privacy -- at least from those self-appointed netcops at
my previous employer (and my current employer, who i'm pretty sure
wont stoop to that level).  the former employer left me with a lot of
bad feelings towards those in charge of technology.  i now send
sensitive emails and netnews postings through this account (only).


thanks for any reply.

/Rache




# ======================================================================
# Disclaimer:  My bod, my mind, and yes, my opinions are my own.

On Thu, 8 Jul 1993 11:03:02 -0400, Rachel Beth Goldstein <rbg@panix.com> said:

>however, friends told me that (1) crypt is easily compromised, and 
>(2) not all unix sites have crypt available anyway.  are there 
>text-based alternates to crypt, such that i don't have to use 
>uuencode or btoa to mail encrypted text?   

If they control the machine, anything is easily compromised.  One way
is to replace the standard crypt with a special one that secretly
saves a copy of the plaintext.

The alternatives you suggest suffer from the same problem.  If you
want to encrypt securely, you'll have to encrypt the plaintext on a
system that you trust - a computer that only you have access to is
best.

Depending on your privacy needs, an account on a system where you
trust the administrators not to abuse their privilege may be
sufficient.  While providing less privacy than encryption, it can be
more convenient.  It will certainly make it harder for them to harrass
you.  

Mike