Muelli points out, why you should use encrypted connections for important information such as email. This shows once more, that we do the right thing at Proterzio. Most of our traffic (everything instead of http and ftp) is encrypted and we do not allow customers to use non-encrypted email connections for example. The price for this is, that our support costs are considerably high. Even though we provide a number of good tutorials for most email programmes out there, customers regularly need help with setting up their accounts. We need to work around stupid virus scanners, firewalls and bad user-interface design of option dialogues or account wizards. Additionally, most customers don’t understand, why their email does not “just work” or why encryption is a good thing. Unfortunately, most users would still not appreciate what we do for them, if I pointed them to Muellis blog post, I guess.
Shameless plug: If this post was useful to you, please consider buying yourself something from one of my Amazon stores: US store, UK store, FR store, DE store, CA store. If you're not into Amazon, why not donate something to GNOME, Mozilla or Wikipedia? Thank you!
You should also mention that SSL/TLS for any connection where login information are handed over, isn’t the end of the road but the beginning. Emails can still be read while lying on a server or on your own pc (which might be “investigated” at any time nowadays by some guys for some “reason”). Same for the harddisk itself.
Most people I know believe in the worlds end to come when their pc is connected to the internet without antivirus and desktop firewall (which is the most ridiculous piece of software I know) but none of them ever cared of the real security issues a pc user should face which is strictly using GPG for example. And most of all switching from proprietary (which itself is the worst security problem) to Free (as in speech of course) Software.
But for the masses, comfort will allways count more than security and anonymity…until it is too late.
Paranoia is no longer an illness but a duty.
just my 2 cent.
Thanks for reading and good night.