Re: Encrypted e-mails?

[Dave Sherohman <dave@sherohman.org>]

On Thu, Sep 06, 2018 at 03:44:22PM +0200, Torben Schou Jensen wrote:
> We have smartphones with software from Apple and Google, but we are unsure
> if they look in our data.

Don't be silly.  Of course they do.

> But it is still very common to send unencrypted e-mails, open post cards.
> So why not use OpenPGP to encrypt e-mails, it is free, I am trying to find
> out how to?

Can't speak for anyone else, but...

I don't give a damn.

I'm sending this message to a public email list that anyone can
subscribe to, and I know that it's archived in many, many places,
several of which can be browsed by the general public.  It is not
private, by design, so why would I bother with encrypting it in transit?

If I were transmitting information that I actually wanted to keep
secret, I wouldn't put it in the body of an email at all.

The current push for enhanced privacy is all well and good, but the
crusaders often forget that there's a lot of information out there which
is intended to be public or which people simply don't care if it becomes
public.  There is absolutely no need to encrypt such information,
therefore "encrypt everything" is not the moral imperative they make it
out to be.

(There's an argument to be made for using cryptographic signatures to
validate the authenticity and integrity of messages, but that doesn't
require encrypting the actual content itself.)

-- 
Dave Sherohman