Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: SMTP Encryption (S/MIME) for Outlook question
From: Lionel Ferette <lionel.ferette () belnet be>
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 08:24:30 +0200
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 In the wise words of Crist J. Clark, on Wednesday 31 March 2004 03:39: [SNIP pertinent comments] Not much to add to the S/MIME part: while email clients are generally rather user-friendly, the casual user will get lost as soon as you mention "X.509", "public key" or "private key". And managing CRL's is no piece of cake either.
To encypt the individual messages? You need, or maybe the people laying this on you, need to think about this a bit more. For good encryption you need two things: an eavsedropper cannot easily recover the clear text and (people sometimes forget this part) the recipient CAN easily recover the plain text.
Often you'll need one more thing: the ability for management to recover the plaintext of an encrypted message. Key escrow, in a word. I don't want to start an argument about whether it's a good idea or not, but face it, it's a requirement in most medium to large companies. [SNIP other pertinent comments] Cheers, Lionel - -- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin Lionel Ferette BELNET CERT Coordinator Rue de la Science 4 Tel: +32 2 7903333 1000 Brussels Fax: +32 2 7903335 Belgium PGP Key Id: 0x5662FD4B -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFAamQmDd3gqVZi/UsRAgOmAKDbH+vBP8JhUVA+BN/X2LC1uVvNRACeISlC B6DkOKOkEZDssrasazRP84A= =2SG0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
Current thread:
- SMTP Encryption (S/MIME) for Outlook question Fetch, Brandon (Mar 24)
- Re: SMTP Encryption (S/MIME) for Outlook question Ben Timby (Mar 25)
- Re: SMTP Encryption (S/MIME) for Outlook question Crist J. Clark (Mar 30)
- Re: SMTP Encryption (S/MIME) for Outlook question Lionel Ferette (Mar 30)
- Re: SMTP Encryption (S/MIME) for Outlook question Volker Tanger (Mar 31)
- Re: SMTP Encryption (S/MIME) for Outlook question i.t Consulting (Mar 31)
- Re: Re: SMTP Encryption (S/MIME) for Outlook question Volker Tanger (Mar 31)
