From: Santiago de la Paz <garnett@wombat.catbelly.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 95 00:50:12 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: PC disk wipe softwar
In-Reply-To: <199510110656.XAA28320@infinity.c2.org>
Message-ID: <199510110750.BAA08909@wombat.catbelly.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



> Excuse me? Yes, most systems back up everything. I run an
> ISP. We back up -everything- (well not netnews), nightly.

Hmm.  Any why *don't* you back up netnews?  For more or less the
same reasons it's not particularly useful to back up outgoing mail
spools; to claim that "most systems do blah blah" is like saying that
"most people like menudo."  I, for one, don't.

"{I/we} run an ISP" is a ubiquitous statement these days;  everybody and his
brother "runs an ISP."  I know a drunken college dropout down the block with
a limping sun 3/50 and two phone lines who prides himself on his ISP.  What is 
not so common is common sense regarding privacy, ie there is not any real 
reason to back up an *outgoing* mail spool unless you want security_agency_of_
your_choice to come and root through your exabyte tapes next week.

Now, as I mentioned in a followup, incoming mail is a different matter.  At
some point it loses its meaning, though: mail is mail, and it's all incoming
somewhere.  The only useful alternative is strong encryption of *all* 
messages, an alternative which solves both the nosy-sysadmin problem as well
as styming the snooping legal beagles.

~james