[PLUG] ProtonMail was: Surveillance Capitalism

[Tomas Kuchta]

I do not think DNS is the correct kitchen sink for user's public key
distribution. The infrastructure and service costs would not be scalable.

Email servers are the obvious target for this - it is distributed, owner
bears costs and does not need middle man.

Just my 2c,
Tomas

On Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 15:13 John Sechrest <sechrest at gmail.com> wrote:

> If you had a key registry of some kind, then just like DNS gives you an IP
> number for a name, you could get a key for a user, and you would have a
> mechanism for sharing the encryption as it changes. Since you articulated
> earlier that my keys are likely going to be changing over time. So then I
> need to put a form of key evolution into this system.
>
> And since we are worried about security in this, we have to find ways to
> make the DNS-for-encryption-keys be secure and immutable, otherwise, it
> just becomes a different vector for descryting by the wrong people.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:08 PM Paul Heinlein <heinlein at madboa.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 10 Jan 2020, John Sechrest wrote:
> >
> > > I have the feeling that the PGP process is not more widely adopted
> > because
> > > of the user experience. You have to go out of your way to get things up
> > and
> > > going. And then you have to be attentive.
> > >
> > > It would be interesting to take this "idea toolchain" and come at it
> > from a
> > > perspective of the user experience in the process.
> > >
> > > I would submit that if I need to be intentional about keys, privacy and
> > > trust in each transaction that the adoption rate will be very low (As I
> > > think we see with pgp)
> > >
> > > Are there ways to fold the "User Actions" into a process, so that the
> > task
> > > of engaging in messaging is secure and yet does not take substantial
> > > intention to keep things going.
> >
> > Longer ago than I care to admit, Simson Garfinkel and I exchanged some
> > ideas on this theme. His idea, which I thought promising, was to treat
> > secure e-mail exhanges like SSH logins.
> >
> > The first time I log into a remote host using SSH, I'm asked to accept
> > the key. It's certainly possible to request that key from a trusted
> > third party (even DNS), but usually I just accept the key on first
> > login. I only worry about it when it changes and SSH issues its
> > impossible-to-ignore WARNING WARNING message.
> >
> > His thought was that the first time you exchange an e-mail message
> > with someone, you accept that user's key (automatically offered up by
> > a process or protocol that doesn't yet exist). The remote user does
> > likewise. Thereafter, all communications with that person are
> > encrypted by that key. Should the key change, the mail client would
> > turn red or otherwise indicate WARNING WARNING. It would be up the
> > local user to decide if the key change is valid or not.
> >
> > There are obvious potential problems with this idea: there's no
> > obvious way to publish keys beforehand; it's unclear how to deal with
> > people who use multiple mail clients (phone, tablet, home workstation,
> > work workstation, web client) with the same e-mail address; too many
> > people will ignore WARNING WARNING and thoughtlessly accept the
> > change; and many others.
> >
> > Still, I thought it was on the right track toward just building
> > point-to-point crypto into the scheme of things.
> >
> > --
> > Paul Heinlein
> > heinlein at madboa.com
> > 45°38' N, 122°6' W_______________________________________________
> > PLUG mailing list
> > PLUG at pdxlinux.org
> > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
> >
>
>
> --
> John Sechrest      .  Need to schedule a meeting :
> http://sechrest.youcanbookme.com
>                                    .
>                                         .
>                                                 .
>
>                                                           .
>      sechrest at gmail.com
>                                                                        .
>                            @sechrest  <http://www.twitter.com/sechrest>
>
>          .
>         http://www.oomaat.com
>                .
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