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In Reply to: Encryption is over my head posted by non-teckie on December 05, 2003 at 09:28:31:
That's as safe as you can get! If you want to send top secret messages then use encryption-decryption software, otherwise forget it. It's more about knowing how things work, like learning never to give your credit card number over an insecure transmission, and things like that.
If you don't have a firewall up, it can be pretty easy for someone to get into your computer, thanks to Microsoft operating systems.
If you click on attachments you can set free spyware or viruses on your computer. Any programmer can learn to make a trick attachment after a few weeks of study.
You sound like you know the rules anyway, so you're doing fne. It's the people with no firewalls, no virus checks, no spyware controls, who think they are anonymous and secure on the internet, passing info around, and keeping sensitive info on their hard drives, that can cause a lot of trouble for themselves or someone else. All it takes is your internet address, which usually comes "hidden" along with your email you send. From there, if there are no serious obstacles, I can find my way into your computer, if you're online, and even plant stuff on your computer without you even knowing it.
I am not talking about anything I haven't seen, only about stuff I used to get paid to do, to find vulnerabilities closed private networks.
