Trilight Zone

[digital8]

If you thought the problem of junk e-mail was bad enough now then it is about to get a whole lot worse. The research organization, Gartner Group, reported that at that start of 2003, spam accounted for 30% of all business email; by July 2003, that percentage had risen to over 50%.
As well as consuming bandwidth and slowing down email systems, spam is a frustrating time-waster, forcing you to sift through and delete mounds of junk mail. It proves irritating and offensive to recipients who feel their privacy has been invaded and could also result in valid emails being discarded along with the junk mail.
Also spam or any other unsolicited message could be used to convince you to reveal sensitive information about yourself or internal computer systems, a message posing as an online survey could ask recipients for your password. The survey could also ask for other information which may allow an attacker targeting to gain valuable intelligence prior to launching another type of attack.

There are more reasons to want to protect your privacy than can be listed here. The important principal is that you have a right to privacy as long as that right is used within the bounds of the law. Seeking privacy should not make one feel guilty; privacy should be expected, and demanded. The reasons might be as simple as preserving your right to express unpopular opinions without being subjected to persecution, or as serious as communicating sensitive business information, legal discussions with your attorney or accountant, or hiding your true identity from an oppressive government. Regardless of your reasons, privacy is your right and hallmark of civilization.

OK, maybe I could use e-mail privacy. What can I do?
There are a myriad of means available to protect online privacy. Some are cumbersome and complex while others are extremely simple. Of greater importance is that some methods are almost totally lacking in security while others are nearly bulletproof.


Here the brief overview of two big, practical steps that you can take. First, use PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software to encrypt your e-mail (and computer files) so that snoops cannot read them. Second, use anonymous remailers to send e-mail to network news groups or to persons so that the recipient (and snoops) cannot tell your real name or e-mail address.