Alanzo
Bardo Tulpa
First, please understand that this is not any kind of a complaint or criticism of ESMB security rules. I believe that ESMB security is as good as most boards of its kind.
However, I do need to ask anyone who wants to send me a private message on ESMB to treat the message as if it is public. DO NOT send me anything that you believe should be kept private in the board private message system.
Again, this has nothing to do with board security measures that are particular to this board.
Since the Edward Snowden revelations, I have been really boning up on privacy and security issues in general and for the internet. And there are very clear facts that a person begins to learn as soon as he starts to read up in this area.
This is like the difference between sending a sealed envelope that is legally protected, and can't be opened by anybody but the addressee, versus sending a post card that can be openly read at any relay point it crosses.
Basically, right now, the traffic that you are sending and receiving on esmb, including your private messages, are like post cards that can be read by anybody on the open internet who chooses to target that traffic.
I realize that to some people, this may appear that I am being paranoid. And you may believe that you would never be a target of such surveillance. That is fine. You may never be. But thinking this way, I believe is misunderstanding your own property rights and is actually a symptom of our times. We have come to ignore our property rights on the Internet and become comfortable with sending post cards for most all of our communications - even ones that would never be in postcard form if you understood the risks to your property and privacy rights.
I believe that one consequence of the Snowden revelations are that property rights will be more important to people as they come to understand what is going on. Encryption technologists and security companies are very busy plugging up the holes in these areas and I think we will be seeing a huge change in our sophistication and understanding of these issues over the next few years.
If you want to know more about this, a great tutorial which is very easy to understand is here: https://ssd.eff.org
In the mean time, please:
Nobody send me a private message that may have sensitive information about yourself, or about me, or about any other member here on ESMB.
Presently, it is not secure.
Alanzo
However, I do need to ask anyone who wants to send me a private message on ESMB to treat the message as if it is public. DO NOT send me anything that you believe should be kept private in the board private message system.
Again, this has nothing to do with board security measures that are particular to this board.
Since the Edward Snowden revelations, I have been really boning up on privacy and security issues in general and for the internet. And there are very clear facts that a person begins to learn as soon as he starts to read up in this area.
- Regular old email that is sent across the open Internet is NEVER secure unless it is encrypted on your machine and sent to another person who has your particular encryption key on their machine. So setting your esmb private messages to alert you in your email inbox on your machine takes the whole conversation you have been having with the person in private messaging, puts it in an email in open text, and sends it out over the public Internet.
- Your browser connection to the ex scientology message board is also not encrypted. So therefore all traffic that passes between your machine and what you read on ESMB, including all private messages, are sent over the public internet in plain open text. This also includes your passwords and login information when you log in.
This is like the difference between sending a sealed envelope that is legally protected, and can't be opened by anybody but the addressee, versus sending a post card that can be openly read at any relay point it crosses.
Basically, right now, the traffic that you are sending and receiving on esmb, including your private messages, are like post cards that can be read by anybody on the open internet who chooses to target that traffic.
I realize that to some people, this may appear that I am being paranoid. And you may believe that you would never be a target of such surveillance. That is fine. You may never be. But thinking this way, I believe is misunderstanding your own property rights and is actually a symptom of our times. We have come to ignore our property rights on the Internet and become comfortable with sending post cards for most all of our communications - even ones that would never be in postcard form if you understood the risks to your property and privacy rights.
I believe that one consequence of the Snowden revelations are that property rights will be more important to people as they come to understand what is going on. Encryption technologists and security companies are very busy plugging up the holes in these areas and I think we will be seeing a huge change in our sophistication and understanding of these issues over the next few years.
If you want to know more about this, a great tutorial which is very easy to understand is here: https://ssd.eff.org
In the mean time, please:
Nobody send me a private message that may have sensitive information about yourself, or about me, or about any other member here on ESMB.
Presently, it is not secure.
Alanzo