SCOUG OS/2 For You - May 1998

zDs#f56$scHw(l"sDvBM ... whoops ... I meant to say the April ISIG meeting was really fun. One of the many fascinating topics we discussed was encryption. Gerstner said it is important. The Secretary of Commerce is responsible for hassling US residents who send good crypto to those pesky foreigners, and he says it is important. Lots of hackers and other bad people say "naah -- don't worry about it." But they want your stuff, and the best way to be really sure they can't get it is to encrypt it.

We found a couple of web sites with PGP for OS/2, and some simple command line utilities of DES and Blowfish file encryptors at Hobbes. They are all fairly simple to install and use. We found that PMMail now has PGP support built in, so you can encrypt and decrypt your emails automatically. We found a site with some utilities to give similar support to MR/2 ICE. Check the Internet SIG web site to get more details. And try the encryption programs -- you'll probably like them. And the basic encryption utilities we tried are free! There are some shareware programs which make them more usable for small fees. Try it, you'll like it. And come to the Internet SIG meetings. We'll learn more about this important topic in coming months.

Last month we also experimented with Internet Chat. Found some neat places where people with unusual names were talking about OS/2. Chat is one of many useful and interesting capabilities you can use on the Internet. Another weapon for the well equipped Internet warrior. We'll gather a few more each month at the meetings.

Coming in May

The next meeting will cover several topics. Unless we have requests to the contrary from the participants, we'll talk about searching for information on the Internet, how Netscape encrypts your financial transactions, CODECs for viewing AVI and other movie formats, all the latest news, and of course, those finest of epicurean delights -- cookies. We'll meet May 18th, and the third Monday every month, at 7PM at the OCIPUG club house. See the web site for details.

Contact Dave Watson, dwatson@deltanet.com if you have questions or comments.

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