Cory Doctrow on the need for easy to use security mechanisms

2014.09.18

Cory Doctrow via The Guardian:

Technical people need our non-technical friends to adopt good privacy practices. Every communications session has at least two parties, the sender and the recipient(s), and your privacy can leak out of either end of the wire. It doesn’t matter if I keep all my email offline, encrypted on my laptop, if it all ends up in the inboxes of people who leave it sitting on Gmail’s servers.

So this is critical, and not just for “normal people”. Even technically sophisticated people often find it difficult to follow security protocol in their own communications and computing. Things that aren’t usable just don’t get used. Making crypto as easy as your favourite websites and apps is the only way to make privacy a reality for everyone.

via Privacy technology everyone can use would make us all more secure | Technology | theguardian.com.

 

That’s all well and good, but how do you do it? If you’re reading this, it’s a safe bet you’re at least interested in the idea of data security. But how do you implement this among the nontechnical? It’s easy enough to tell a group of technical people “install PGP, encrypt and sign everything, don’t use weak keys” etc. But how do you get your mom to use it? Or the 62-year-old accountant that prefers to not have to deal with computers except to buy things online and email old friends or distant relatives?

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