Convenient End-To-End Encryption for E-Mail
autocrypt.org
Convenient End-To-End Encryption for E-Mail
1–10 of 190 posts
Re: Convenient End-To-End Encryption for E-Mail
#2Send the link to your boss and ask his opinion
Re: Convenient End-To-End Encryption for E-Mail
#3Here is a description how it works: https://posteo.de/en/blog/new-easy-email-encryption-with-aut...
Re: Convenient End-To-End Encryption for E-Mail
#4Pretty off topic, but: I've been working on signed web applications: http://blog.airbornos.com/post/2017/08/03/Transparent-Web-Ap.... If anyone working on a web-based email client wants to take a shot at making it completely secure (against the web app's server), shoot me an email :) in profile.
Re: Convenient End-To-End Encryption for E-Mail
#5Here is a description how it works: https://posteo.de/en/blog/new-easy-email-encryption-with-aut...
>>The manual exchange and management of keys – which users often perceive as complicated – is becoming superfluous: Prior to the first encrypted communication, a regular empty email (without content) is sent. With this, the key is transferred in the background. Henceforth, messages can be encrypted automatically.
doesn't sound like they solved the key exchange problem. they merely changed it to trust on first use.
Re: Convenient End-To-End Encryption for E-Mail
#6The site could benefit from a to-the-point explanation that doesn't assume prior experience with PGP based mail. I can't point less technical users to this.
Does this work if one uses multiple mail clients (fx. notebook, desktop, and smartphone)?
Since it requires client support, it doesn't seem an option currently on, say, an iPhone.
Re: Convenient End-To-End Encryption for E-Mail
#7Here is a description how it works: https://posteo.de/en/blog/new-easy-email-encryption-with-aut...
>>The manual exchange and management of keys – which users often perceive as complicated – is becoming superfluous: Prior to the first encrypted communication, a regular empty email (without content) is sent. With this, the key is transferred in the background. Henceforth, messages can be encrypted automatically. doesn't sound like they solved the key exchange problem. they merely changed it to trust on first use.
Which is a common compromise and frankly more useful than the web-of-trust model, as long as users understand the limitation and verify once offline.
It's still unclear to me how this works if you use more than one email client.
Re: Convenient End-To-End Encryption for E-Mail
#8Unpopular but very probably true fact: email can't practicably be made secure, and people should stop trying. Email is itself archaic, and there aren't good reasons people should use it for routine peer-to-peer communications that need secrecy.
Why? Because:
* It's default-plaintext. We don't generally love the way websites ensure they're viewed securely, but email doesn't even have the basic mechanisms HTTP has to prevent secrets from accidentally being sent in the clear.
* Email encryption is never forward-secure. The most popular standard, OpenPGP, involves a long-term key that is the root of secrecy for all messages from a particular person. Lose that key, ever, and not only is every message you send in the future unsafe, but every message you've ever sent in the past is too. That's a terrible property for a secure messaging system.
* Email leaks metadata. In fact, some of what we call email "metadata" isn't even metadata --- stuff like subject lines are simply content. They're sent in plaintext. We would never accept a new secure messaging system that behaved like that.
* Most email users get their email from a website. Unless you make them install something on all their computers --- and at that point, just get them to install Signal, WhatsApp, or Wire --- "encrypting" their email involves schemes in which those websites can get their plaintext mail.
* Most email clients are searchable-archive-by-default. Again, if you're using a secure messaging system to keep secrets from a state-level adversary, that's exactly what you don't want. And again, what matters here is the behavior of the overwhelming majority of clients. If you can stipulate a special mail client that is extra-careful, why not stipulate a forward-secure advanced messaging system and stop bothering with email?
Everything that makes email effective in the real world makes it inhospitable to secure messaging. We should stop trying to push this particular boulder up this particular mountain and instead just get people to adopt serious secure messengers.
Re: Convenient End-To-End Encryption for E-Mail
#9Send the link to your boss and ask his opinion
Say your company needs a new vehicle with specific safety features while still being convenient. When you find the vehicle that meets the requirements do you just plop the manual on your managers desk and ask for an opinion?
Re: Convenient End-To-End Encryption for E-Mail
#10Unpopular but very probably true fact: email can't practicably be made secure, and people should stop trying. Email is itself archaic, and there aren't good reasons people should use it for routine peer-to-peer communications that need secrecy. Why? Because: * It's default-plaintext. We don't generally love the way websites ensure they're viewed securely, but email doesn't even have the basic mechanisms HTTP has to p…
The email address format is so useful for domain-based identity.
We still haven't squared Zooko's Triangle. What is the practical way to get a function like "document was sent with best effort for some legal purpose to a known party"? Are we just stuck with "login to the secure messaging site" emails from our banks?