From mrose at stsci.edu Thu Jul 8 08:39:01 1993 From: mrose at stsci.edu (Mike Rose) Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 08:39:01 PDT Subject: text p.d. cryptosystems for email In-Reply-To: <199307081503.AA28828@panix.com> Message-ID: <9307081538.AA22424@MARIAN.STSCI.EDU> On Thu, 8 Jul 1993 11:03:02 -0400, Rachel Beth Goldstein 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