January 20, 2005 | Cursory Screenings

• In today's Wired News, Michelle Delio reviews an easy-to-use email authentication and encryption add-on, called Ciphire, that works with most platforms and most email applications. I'd been meaning to take a closer look at this, as I'd like to encrypt my email on principle, but haven't had the time to play around with PGP or GnuPGP.

  After reading her review, I'm pretty sure I'll be installing this free, soon-to be open source utility very soon. One note of caution, make sure you check how it works with any anti-virus program you might be using. The documentation page for Windows says I need to install Ciphire before I install the program I'm currently using (one I get for free from my ISP). As soon as I get a few minutes to uninstall the one I have, I'll give it a go and post my thoughts here.

Update:I managed to get Ciphire working on my work box, which runs Win2K and OL2000, though there were some moments of turbulence, mainly due, I think, to having SpamAssassin running on my server (not as a proxy on my computer). It bounced the final necessary email, and then Ciphire decided to search all 10,000 or so of my emails looking for something. The old reboot, reboot, reboot method fixed everything.

And finally, since this system works by trusting your public key to Ciphire and trusting the company not to record who you get and send email to/from and trusting software that is yet to be open-source, install this at your own peril. That's what I did. So far its fun to send out digitally signed email and decrypt messages from Ciphire support people (the only folks I know at this point using the software).

• O'Harrow update: His new book, "No Place to Hide," which I mentioned almost a few too many times already, has a webpage, with some cool links to a radio show developed in conjunction with the book, and some transcripts of interviews with folks like Total Information Awareness founder John Poindexter, Patriot Act author Viet Dinh and former Senate Judiciary chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy. (Via Privacy Spot)

  Also, O'Harrow takes a close look at data aggregator Choicepoint in today's Washington Post, but the chapter in the book is more thorough and critical.

• And finally, Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing and the Electronic Frontier Foundation got grilled in London about the addresses of his friends in the United States by agents of American Airlines, who blamed the TSA for the invasive questions. Given the TSA abuses the SSI designation to hide its regulations from the public, this could be; but I doubt it. I think AA was likely doing this on their own. Maybe I'll make some calls about it today...

Posted by Ryan Singel at January 20, 2005 09:03 AM

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» Secondary Screening: Cory Doctorow and Secondary 'Secondary Screening' Classes from Privacy Digest: Privacy News (Civil Rights, Encryption, Free Speech, Cryptography)
As Slashdot and Boing Boing readers likely know, Cory Doctorow was recently questioned by an American Airlines security agent in London and asked to write down the names and addresses of the people he planned to stay with in the States. [Read More]

Tracked on January 22, 2005 09:10 AM