[Discuss] email privacy/security

[Richard Pieri]

Kent Borg wrote:
> For what values of "effectively"?  Even the NSA needs to get money
> appropriated.  Make them put extra zeros on the end and it matters.

Where "effectively" means that they get everything they ask for in terms 
of money and equipment.


> What does it take to grab all the e-mail running in the clear through
> ISP X?  A good data link to Utah (or wherever), and not that much
> hardware at key choke points  Conversely, what does it take to do MitM
> attacks on all the e-mail running through ISP X?

The exact same hardware plus "master" X.509 certificates for all of the 
public certificate authorities. The former gets all of the traffic and 
the latter decrypts most of it as it comes across the wire.

-- 
Rich P.