File Encryption

One of my friends is a nut for e-mail file encryption. He will actually refuse to read my e-mails unless I send them encrypted to him.

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For a long time, I was pretty stubborn about the whole thing. I would send him dozens of e-mails that he wouldn't read, and he would send me dozens of encrypted files asking me to encrypt my e-mails. We were both pretty stubborn in those days, as best friends often are, but finally I gave in. I didn't have any beef with file encryption, I just thought he was being a little bit neurotic. Nowadays, I think differently about the whole thing. In this day and age, you can't be too careful.

You see, there is this little thing called Echelon going on. Basically, it is a program with Britain, Canada, and Australia where we all spy on each other's communication. It allows our governments to get around the laws that forbid domestic spying by allowing other countries to do it, then report back to our own government.

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Although this might be unconstitutional, it doesn't matter. No one has successfully challenged it yet. The only solution is file encryption. When you encrypt your e-mail, it is almost impossible for the government to access it unless they are able to guess your password. Basically, it is the only way to protect your communications from prying eyes. It probably doesn't matter, but I just simply feel that you can't be too careful.

Of course, file encryption has other uses besides e-mails. Basically, you can encrypt anything. You can encrypt zip files, encrypts text files you can even encrypt your whole hard drive if you want to. It is all a matter of how much effort you want to put into security. All of the security, you see, has drawbacks. If you lose your file encryption password, you are out of luck. If your hard drive crashes with its files encrypted, you are out of luck.

A little bit of file encryption is a good idea, but taking it to extremes seems impractical to me. It is all a matter of being realistic about what you are protecting against. It seems reasonable to stop people from snooping into private e-mails, but protecting every file in your computer might be a little bit excessive. Of course, there is a good argument that you can never be too careful.

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