Re: Faked message

[Peter Kent <71601 -dot- 1266 -at- COMPUSERVE -dot- COM>]

Karen Mayer wrote:

 --------------------  ORIGINAL MESSAGE TEXT  ------------------- -
 Jeffrey Pittman didn't really write:
 Actually, Jeffrey, it's quite easy to fake messages even if your computeris
completely secure. This message came from hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles
from your computer.

 From, the phantom message faker!....

 (Actually this is Peter Kent, and I _didn't_ fake the original message,
I'mjust showing how easy it is to fake messages on the Internet.)

 Peter Kent
 --------------------  END OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE --------------------
 This is kind of scarey. What can we do to prevent this kind of thing?
Obviously there are people who will find a way to beat nearly any beatable
system, but the faked messages thing has the potential to do a lot of damage.
-- km<<<<<<<
 --------------------

 Karen,

 It's extremely simple to send fake e-mail--the Internet e-mail system is far
from unbeatable. However, I should warn anyone who tries it that it's still
possible to trace faked e-mail.

 There's no easy way around the problem. The truly paranoid, however, can send
all of their messages with a digital signature attached; if any messages
arrive without a digital signature people can assume that the message is not
genuine. You can create digital signatures using PGP. If you have Windows, I'd
suggest you use PGP along with WinPGP. For more info you might want to see my
_PGP Companion for Windows_ (Ventana).

 As you can see, however, I don't bother adding digital signatures to my
messages, even though I know how; it just seems too much bother. I'll take the
risk.

 Peter Kent
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