Why I use PGP

I started out on fidonet. with a 1200 boud modem, dialing in to bbs’s and PSU/fido.

There were no hackers. There were no spy’s.

Hell, there wasn’t even an internet.

Browser? what is that?

No pix, no scripts. Just text.txt files.

Raw info.

Then came GUI and HTML and cheep (comparatively) computers.
That’s when “the internet” was born.

People began using their computers to actually communicate.

So, some megalomaniacs in the government got the bright idea of reading those e-mails from known bad guys.

Then unknown bad guys. Then Everyone. Thus was born Carnivore. Authorized for implementation by Wm.J. Clinton, but developed a few years earlier by NSA under the Reagan administration. It did for e-mail what eschelon did for cellphone conversations.

Now, the Congress claims to have de-funded these programs.

If you believe that I can sell you a scanner that will track cell phone conversations across multiple cells.

A radioshack scanner to boot! (Newt Gingrich, call your office)

I don’t doubt that there is ongoing monitoring by computers searching for keywords of cell phones and e-mails.

So if I want to send something without the snoops being able to easily read it, I use PGP

Since I tend to talk a lot about guns, and I’m SURE that is a keyword, I want to be able to write freely with my co-respondents.

Thus PGP

If you want to send me e-mail, I would rather you use PGP than not, about anything. Think of it as an envelope, for a letter.

My PGP public key is linked to a button at the top of every page.

My “Fingerprint” is:

F697 6D3F F5DF BD2F 01B6 ED98 5303 8036 C3FC 4DF3

Thanks for your understanding