Sun, 18 Nov 2007

How safe is Hushmail's e-mail encryption?

The company Hushmail provides different e-mail encryption services: one where e-mails are encrypted by a Java applet before they leave the user's computer, another one where e-mails are sent over https to Hushmail and then encrypted on the server side. Neither service precludes the company decrypting users' e-mails and handing them to courts - so Hushmail does not protect data of people engaging in illegal activities. (A story on Wired.com)

Posted on 18 Nov 2007 at 22:52 in /technology/e-mail. -- Permalink

Advent music rehearsal

We attended the German Protestant church service this morning. B., U. and a school principal whose acquaintance we made took care of the music. We had an interesting talk with that principal and her husband. After the service, we had a drawn-out rehearsal for our concert-cum-sing-along, which will take place on 9 December. We realised we're still rather far from being ready to perform our stuff in front of an audience - this came as quite a nasty surprise. But we'll sort it out ...

Posted on 18 Nov 2007 at 20:25 in /life. -- Permalink

An afternoon of playing games with friends

Yesterday afternoon, we had 3 pastors and a child over for an afternoon of playing games, eating cake and chatting. We had a great time together. Also, this occasion gave us the opportunity - or rather forced us - to clean up our flat, which was in quite a mess. B. did almost all the cleaning while I did the shopping.

Posted on 18 Nov 2007 at 20:25 in /life. -- Permalink

What Tor can be used for

It's interesting what you can do with Tor - set up an exit node and monitor other people's traffic for example. Apparently, this is what a guy named Egerstad did; he found lots of usernames and passwords associated with e-mail accounts used by embassies - and later posted these username/password combinations on his blog. Now he's in trouble with the police. But has he done anything wrong?

It's interesting, too, that quite a lot of Tor users still don't seem to understand that Tor does not provide strong anonymity - even though the Tor website clearly states this. A lot of people don't seem to understand the difference between Tor and end-to-end e-mail encryption. Well, too bad for them ...

Posted on 18 Nov 2007 at 20:16 in /technology/internet. -- Permalink