Security News > 2002 > August > Hackers beg boring people to stop encrypting email
Forwarded from: John http://www.satirewire.com/news/aug02/encryption.shtml San Jose, Calif. (SatireWire.com) - In an unusual worldwide appeal, the International Brotherhood of Computer Hackers today asked particularly boring people to please stop encrypting their emails. According to IBCH President Björn Haxor, hackers spend thousands of hours intercepting and cracking open encrypted emails - believing it to be "the good stuff" - only to find most contain little more than "Two priests walk into a bar," or "Hi Bob, here's my new email address." "Maybe you think hacking coded messages is simple, but it's not - well, except for the Microsoft Outlook ones," said Haxor. "The rest of it is a pain in the backdoor. So here's a tip: if you encrypt just because you want to keep your personal information 'secret,' but all you're encrypting is blather about your stupid promotion or a recipe for fruit salad, guess what? Your secret's already out. You're dull." "Please, keep it to yourself and stop wasting our time," he added. Instead, Haxor said, people should only encrypt if they are going to send information such as passwords, credit card numbers, blueprints for an unreleased product, or confidential sales figures. Barring that, he advised, "at least give us something revealing, like you slept with your boss's wife, or his Airedale." In fact, some frustrated hackers have begun to fight back against what they call "rampant, reckless encryption." "I had one guy at Oracle who encrypted everything, and 80 percent of his emails were gripes about his department head," said IBCH member BlackDogg77. "I got so fed up, I bounced all the emails back to the guy's boss and got him fired. I mean, why should I put up with that shit?" "Or Al Gore," Haxor added. "The other day I'm monitoring some government servers, and I see all these encrypted emails from Gore. Hey Al, news alert: You're Al Gore. No one cares anymore. Give it up." Surprisingly, computer security experts agree. "I get this all the time: 'Should I encrypt? I don't want anyone to steal my identity,'" said LockUpOnline President Bing D'aahl. "The textbook answer has been 'Yes,' but now we are advising people to first ask themselves, 'Do I have an identity that anyone would really want to steal?'" If you answer truthfully, D'aahl said, chances are you'll forego the digital ID and save everyone a lot of trouble. "Remember, the Internet wasn't built just for you," Haxor added. - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomo () attrition org with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.