Privacy
Computer networks are used more and more for the transmission of information
data. This includes personal data which need to be well-protected.
The use of cryptography is well suited for this.
Cryptography
Cryptography can make a data file unreadable.
Only the matching key can return it to its original form.
A good article with a lot of background information on cryptography is:
Three WWW pages with much information are:
Frequently asked question are answered in the
Cryptography FAQ.
Developments and discussions can be followed in the newsgroup
talk.politics.crypto.
More information on the privacy group of DB.NL can be found in our own page.
How much the citizen can use cryptography in the future depends heavily
on the plans of the government to restrict cryptography.
In the Netherlands, the use of personal details is guarded by the socalled
Registration Chamber.
They see technology as a solution to the through technology induced registration
fever.
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.
-- Philip Zimmermann
PGP is a strong encryption program which is available for many systems
and for completely no charge.
The program has been controversial in the USA, because there were
a few legal complications.
These problems have been solved with the arrival of
MIT PGP 2.6 for use in the USA, and
PGP 2.6ui for the rest of the world.
PGP 2.6ui is compatible with both MIT PGP 2.6
and the old version PGP 2.3a.
More information can be found in:
See also
Zimmermann's Testimony.
The manuals for PGP,
Essential topics and
Special topics,
are elaborate, but not easy.
Other, easier manuals are:
You can place your own public key onto the
PGP-keyserver-netwerk and search for the keys of others.
For more information, see the
list with PGP FAQ's and the newsgroup
alt.security.pgp.
RSA
RSA Data Security Inc.
developed applications of cryptography.
The RSA encryption algoritm was used here, which is regarded
as virtually unbreakable.
The company also offers licences to other companies.
See also
two press releases on the application of RSA.
Much informaton on RSA can be found in the
RSA FAQ.
Steganography
A digitized picture usually contains an amount of noise, just like sound.
Steganography is replacing this noise with information,
which would allow hidden information to be transmitted.
Romana Machado wrote the program Stego for this.
This program is available for MacIntosh and MS-DOS computers.
Remailers
With a remailer it is possible to send mail anonymously, or
to post into a newsgroup.
A remailer removes all identifyable data from the header of a
message sent to it, and subsequently passes it on.
One step further is to first encrypt the message with PGP,
after which the remailer decrypts it again and passes it on.
The
list with remailers contains information on the various remailers.
For the smaller messages you can use the
remailer op het World Wide Web.
Telephone services
PTT Telecom offers more and more services.
One of these to be introduced next year is the number identification,
where the caller issues his telephone number.
The Clipper chip
The US government has developed a chip with which telephone conversations
can be encrypted. With this it would be impossible to listen in to
telephone conversations, except by the government which has the key
for each chip.
The export ban on cryptography
The export of (strong) cryptography is forbidden in the USA.
This will also have an impact on us if some particular forms of
cryptography is going to be be permitted.
More information on privacy can be found in the
Privacy FAQ. There is also a newsgroup
alt.privacy
and a
Privacy Forum.