[Discuss] Relevance of PGP?

[me at mattgillen.net (Matthew Gillen)]

On 06/09/2011 02:52 PM, Ben Eisenbraun wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 02:27:29PM -0400, Matthew Gillen wrote:
>> On 06/09/2011 01:27 PM, Doug wrote:
>>> Every September, I have skipped the meeting.  Since I am just a nerd
>>> with a few public web sites and an open source project, I don't feel a
>>> need to encrypt anything.  I would be interested to hear why people in
>>> BLU uses encryption.
>>
>> I make sure to use it when my wife sends me email to my work email
>> address.  My employer doesn't need to be reading my personal email
>> (there are laws against employers reading personal mail, but why trust
> 
> I think you mean:
> 
> s/laws/no laws/
> 
> If you get a personal email to your _work_ email address, that email is the
> property of your employer, since it's using company resources.

Actually, that depends on the particulars of your company's IT policies:
http://www.laborlawyers.com/shownews.aspx?Are-Employees-Personal-Emails-On-Work-Computers-Private-Sometimes-Rules-N-J-Supreme-Court&Ref=list&Type=1122&Show=12796

(in that case, explicit permission was granted in the IT policy such
that, among other things, "occasional personal use is permitted", so the
court found that the employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy
when communicating with her lawyer, even when using company resources)

But yes, that becomes even more reason to just use GPG: so that I don't
have to keep up on the latest interpretation of privacy laws.

Matt