Steven52

Yes. Part of my reasoning includes protection for unauthorized charges on my card. We have to live within the constraints we have.

I guess it depends on whether or not it was YOUR email which was hacked and exploited (and resulting credit report destroyed). Opening, reading, and resealing trillions of envelops is a lot different from having computer programs scan text for key words/numbers. Agreed, huge security risk. I agree that encryption needs to be easy, that's why I encourage people to use TrulyMail instead of trying to install three different applications, configuring each with a series of options, only to end in frustration. Things need to be zero-click-easy. Not many people drove early cars... until they made them easier to use, now everyone can drive. Please do not consider my earlier links to Google to claim that anything which can be found on Google to be true, honest, or even reasonable. However, when you see the same story listed by CNN, BBC, Reuters, etc., it is reasonable to assume it's true. I'm sure you're a reasonable person and already understand this.

Clearly it depends on what part of the network you have access to. If you're at the ISP, you have access to everyone connected to that ISP. Again, wifi is also a way to access someone's network. The Palin hack had nothing to do with this. The China Gmail hack had nothing to do with this. The former was due to a public figure and easy to answer reset questions. The latter was a different reason. Your statement is completely wrong here. If you want to understand, please look up 'asynchronous cryptography.' This is a well know, and commonly use, technicque that allows me to send you a message encrypted to one key but it can only be decrypted with another key (the key to encrypt cannot be used to decrypt). This solves the age-old problem of key distribution. If I've not given you enough technical information, please let me know what you would like understand and I'll find a proper technical source for you to read. I hope you're not serious in thinking there is not enough computer power to sort through unencrypted emails. Consider that more than 100 million computers are sold each year. Then consider the powerful supercomputers. What is science fiction (as far as I know) is the NSA being able to decrypt a messages encrypted with a strong key in a few seconds. Mathmatically, even with the most powerful computers in use today it will take more years than I'll be alive. Hollywood does love to add unrealistic elements to shows but don't think that means that a government (don't just think the US government) cannot scan every email. I can, and does, happen (and it's not hard to do). Look at just one company, like Facebook. They were in the news recently for their computer center consuming as much power as the entire city around it. These centers don't just have 10 computers in them, they have thousands. You think the government hacking centers just have one desktop PC to do their jobs? You think China has only five?

You want proof? Good, you should. There is no reason to assume anything is true. Try looking through some news articles here: https://www.google.com/search?q=google+china+email+hack This is a well known incident of an email provider (Gmail) being hacked (there others with Hotmail, etc.). Sara Palin is another example of someone who had their email account hacked. Again, just search: https://www.google.com/search?q=palin+email+hack I am a technical person and hacking an email account is not difficult (but you do need access to someone's network, via wifi or hardwire, and use a 'sniffer' to read everything). This is one of the many reasons that laws (like HIPAA and others) are going on the books to REQUIRE people to use encryption when sending sensitive information. I, for one, think it is a great idea. Then, we could talk about governments scanning emails: https://www.google.com/search?q=fbi+scanning+email Now, to the main question, I usually recommend TrulyMail for encrypting email. They have an Encrypted Web Messaging service which works really well and is very simple for non-technical people to use (and they don't need TrulyMail to decrypt the message or attachments). This is the major issue with encryption. Try having a novice decrypt a GPG-encrypted message and you'll be pulling your hair out. Good luck!