Re: [Paddlewise] Visiting Paddlers - Devils Advocate

On Friday, April 12, 2002, at 12:12:13 PM PST,
Rick.Sylvia_at_ferguson.com wrote:

> We've all seen posts that start with something like "I'll be
> travelling to .......". But now, we're talking about replacing those
> posts with data in the form of some sort of spreadsheet, right? Is
> the data thought to be better, faster, or more reliable than the
> human interaction of the posts? I'd say no. It's potentially
> out-of-date the minute you publish it, and many folks won't even
> bother to fill it out.

You made some good points Rick.  I would like to add a bit to the idea
of questioning the publicly posted database/spreadsheet idea...

Internet communications (email, instant messages, web sites, etc.) are
wonderful. They are also, without reasonable measures taken to protect
one's privacy, a treasure trove for identity thieves, stalkers, etc.

Anything I write to a list like PW, I write in clear text. Sending
clear text over the Internet is equivalent to sending multiple copies
of postcards. Anything posted in clear text to a publicly available
web site is also about as private as a mass mailed postcard.

Anything of a more personal nature - my exact street address, my phone
numbers, etc. - I send via the Internet *only* if they're encrypted (I
use PGP/GnuPG for email/text/file encryption).

How detailed is the information destined for this proposed public
database expected to be? Anything more than an email address can
compromise privacy - and all our email addresses are already available
to each other through our message list posts anyway.

Because of the nature of the Internet, it really doesn't matter if I
"trust" the person I'm sending my phone number to - because if it's in
clear text, the information is available to any number of people I
don't know.

For this reason of privacy (which *can* affect one's personal security
as well), I provide a way for people - via the mailto in my signature
- to obtain my PGP public key. With that - and with PGP or GnuPG
installed on their computer - we can exchange encrypted email.

This public mail list serves a great purpose for "postcard" type of
information exchange. For more personal communications, I prefer back
channel email. For truly personal information exchange (street
address, etc.), I prefer only encrypted back channel email. Therefore
- I would be one of the PW'ers who would *not* put my private contact
information on any public database.

If anyone is actually interested in learning more about email/file
encryption, I've created a message that you can obtain via my
auto-responder to help you get started with PGP or GnuPG.  Just click
on this mailto and send the resulting email:

mailto:willkayakforfood_at_gmx.net?subject=PGP_Links

(Since the auto-responder is part of my email client, and I don't keep
my computer on all the time, if there's a delay, it's because my
computer is off.  The message will be sent the next time it's on
again.)

Melissa
-- 
PGP public keys:
mailto:pgp_keys_at_gmx.co.uk?subject=0x46C29887&Body=Please%20send%20keys

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