by Simon 11 Replies latest jw friends
Given the recent faked emails 'from' silentlambs and other emails that have been faked to come from me and others, perhaps it's time to tighten up our communications.
I suggest that anyone giving out official information sign their emails with a secure certificate that can verify that it is authentic.
Either that, or post all announcements that are sent by email on a website as well which can be checked to see if an email is for real.
Any thoughts ?
this has been very upsetting. My heart sank thinking something had actually happend to Bill. I think the signing of the e-mail is good-but don't know how that is done. I did not receive one of the e-mails even though i am on silentlambs mialing list. I beleive it may be b/c i have my e-mail hidden.
Most probably Wednesday
Signing an email electronically is a way of veryfying that it comes from who it says it comes from. Only the person with the private key can sign the emails so any fake ones stand out.
Even though I don't have any "official" e-mail to send to anyone, I don't have the foggiest idea of how to attach a Secure Certificate to any document I send. Do you need to have a special program to do that Simon??
Do I even need to worry about it for my own purposes?
I think it's a good idea for anyone who's representing something "bigger than themselves" the way Silentlambs is compared to Bill Bowen to do something of this sort, particularly given the "loving" nature of his attackers....
Love, Scully
Simon,
This is a really good site and we (Kaytee and me) are getting quite addicted to it. We agree with you that some emails can be so disruptive and spoil things for everyone. We are quite new to using computers and therefore can't contribute with any technical answers but we can say how grateful we are to you Simon for all of the hard work that you do.
Twink & Kaytee
I would recommend PGP. You can get freeware versions from:
http://www.pgpi.org/products/pgp/versions/freeware/
v8.0 will be out soon at:
http://www.pgp.com/display.php?pageID=31
I am on the Silentlambs mailing list, and I did not hear about the hoax until Bill sent out a warning. My e-mail here is not protected. So, I don't know where the hoaxer picked up the addresses, but it doesn't appear to be either SL or here, uniformly.
Either way, there are certain things that I take with a grain of salt. Remember when the rumour went around that Milton Henschel had died?
What I'm getting at is: the simplest way to avoid being duped is to be skeptical. If something is hard to believe, or is shocking, make sure you verify it with reputable sources.
Actually, this works pretty well with all aspects of life.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
I recommend OpenPGP; see http://www.openpgp.org/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (Darwin)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
iD8DBQE90XhnWaTbH3GWUQURAnK8AJ9LND5TiVCQyOCqKkHicj3dfK5EygCg9HW5
K9VUcps2U0QwCw5FxSkFJb0=
=cJUH
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
I was thinking more along the lines of certificates that are built in to Outlook which are a lot easier to use for the average user (me included)
The simple solution is to just make sure that the latest 'newsletter' is also posted on the website and emails link to it so that they can be checked against it to make sure they are legit.
Some of us don't use outlook, because it is a security risk. The certificates do work with other e-mail programs besides lookout, er outlook.
