Re: [tlug] search for encrypted information exchange

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Joe Larabell writes:

 > So... what exactly is the threat in my case, besides the loss of some 
 > relatively expensive hardware?

Let's start with spammers and email addresses.

 > I think Bruno's point was that if you simply don't keep sensitive
 > information on your laptop, there's little point in bending over
 > backwards to keep what *is* there safe.

But you do keep sensitive information on your laptop, or rather the
applications you use do.  Tokens for connections to your VPN or
private web pages, email addresses if you use a local MUA rather than
one that you can access only by VPN or webmail, documents cached by
the editor/viewer or in swap, ....

If the only thing you do with your laptop is play games, then you can
say with confidence there's no sensitive information on it.  Or maybe
you're madogiwa-zoku.  Otherwise, you do real work on it, and there's
sensitive information on it.

 > That argument obviously doesn't apply to the twit who decides to
 > take his company's entire credit-card database home with him after
 > work. Isn't it possible that "security by common-sense" is just as
 > good as encryption in many cases?

No.  It's either much better, or much worse.  Never just as good.