Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 19:21:14 -0400
From: Ted White <tedwhite at compusnet.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Speel checkers?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Steve Smith wrote:

> Ted White wrote:
> >
> > Steve Smith wrote:
> >
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > Another interesting aspect of spam just showed up.  My ISP uses a rather
> > > well-regarded spam filtering company to process all their e-mail.
> > > (http://www.postini.com/  I haven't had any problem with it until
> > > today, when significant chunks of this discussion landed in the spam
> > > bucket.
> >
> > Actual content filtering is *dangerous*.  It implies content monitoring.
>
> E-mail is wide open anyway.  The only things keeping anybody at an ISP
> from reading your mail any time they want are their employee policies,
> their basic honesty (ha!), and the sheer volume of e-mail (two thirds of
> which, last time I saw a number, was *not* spam.)
>
> If you don't want people reading your e-mail, you need to encrypt it.
> Both Netscape and Microsoft mail programs have encryption built in.
>
> To use it, you have to get a "certificate".  To do this, go to
> http://www.thawte.com/getinfo/products/personal/contents.html
> and follow the instructions.  It's free.  They want a "Government issued
> ID number", but they don't check it.  If you make up a number, write it
> down, as you may need it later.
>
> To send encrypted or digitally signed e-mail to somebody, you have to
> have the "public" version of their certificate.  Easiest way to do this
> is to have the people that you want to send secure e-mail to, send you a
> digitally signed message.  Then you can send encrypted mail back to
> them.  The buttons to click are under "Tools" (Outlook Express) or
> "Communicator->Tools->Security Info" (Netscape) or "Options->Security"
> (Mozilla).
>
> We can't send digitally signed mail on the list here; Keith's software
> would throw it away.  If anybody wants to send me encrypted mail, for
> practice or any other reason, just drop me a line and I'll send you a
> signed message.
>
> Note -- this is the simple version.  If you want the full woo-woo
> tinfoil hat version, see me at a WSFA meeting or drop me a note
> (preferably digitally signed).

I don't say anything in an email that I'd worry about if a stranger read it, and
I'm not interested in encrypting my email (most of which is correspondence to
lists like this one anyway).

But it was my impression that spam was detected based not on its content but on
its mode of dispersal.  (I note that HP's messages to me are officially the
products of the Topica elists.  I assume that's so they won't be taken for
spam.)  Any program that monitors content (I wouldn't assume any humans are
actually *reading* anything) borders on the FBI's Carnivore -- at which I look
askance.

--Ted White