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21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

bugzilla.mozilla.org

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Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#61

Post by toast0 »

acdha wrote: post #39
epistasis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

S/MIME is the closest to dead simple solution, but it requires trusting certificate authorities. It's a much better user experience, and honestly I'm surprised that no enterprise orgs have adopted it, because it would probably be cheaper than all this phishing training.

Enterprises, at least in the form of the U.S. federal government, have but there are two key drawbacks: 1. At least until recent, Microsoft implemented it as blocking code in the UI thread – open a message and Outlook won't paint until it can verify the cert, access your local key store (hope your token is in a USB port which is 100% reliable), etc. If you thought “Does that mean that revocation checks block the UI u…

> 2. Adoption hasn't been enough to be able to ban untrusted senders. This could still be quite useful for, say, a hard requirement that *@example.com must have signatures but it doesn't help with really common phishing tactics like pretending to be a vendor, business partner, etc.

Preventing forgery of @example.com is nice, but sadly doesn't matter that much, because a message fro "Your Boss" is just going to show up as Your Boss in the UI with most clients these days, amd Enterprise oriented clients are worse than the norm. The fastest way to see the actual addresses is to just press reply, which is irritating.

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#62

Post by throrthaway »

JdeBP wrote: post #58
throrthaway wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/233 16 years and still pending! All bets are off for this dark horse

It has been 21 years since people asked to have SRV DNS resource record support in Mozilla. * http://jdebp.uk./FGA/dns-srv-record-use-by-clients.html

Now my opinion may seem controversial but I personally believe having feature requests that are old enough to legally drink is not a sign of healthy project management

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#63

Post by mch82 »

trothamel wrote: post #4
janvdberg wrote: post #2

Is this the longest time between request/bug and fix?

It's in a different field, and I'm being very tongue-in-cheek - but the Twenty-Seventh Amendment to the US Constitution has it beat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-seventh_Amendment_to_th...

Cool link

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#64

Post by toast0 »

jolux wrote: post #40
oconnore wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You build it on SMTP because upgrading clients is easier than doing a clean slate redesign of ubiquitous internet protocols. Presumably we're discussing how an open protocol addition might gain any traction at all over walled garden protocols like Slack -- and in those cases you want to maintain as much compatibility as possible. "Federated SecureEmail 2.0" would be dead-on-arrival, where "Secure Client on top of bog…

>You build it on SMTP because upgrading clients is easier than doing a clean slate redesign of ubiquitous internet protocols. Why not just toss the whole shebang and rebuild it below that layer? Signal Protocol seems to be pretty successful here. >Presumably we're discussing how an open protocol addition might gain any traction at all over walled garden protocols like Slack No, I'm asking how a new open protocol can…

> No, I'm asking how a new open protocol can be built on top of email in a way that maintains strong backwards compatibility while offering strong security guarantees, like end-to-end encryption. I don't think it's possible.

You can't have strong security guarantees with backwards compatability, because backwards compatability requires plain text sending.

Unless you're OK with limited guarantees like the UI will tell you when the mail could be sent in plain text. Or if the UI tells you the message will be end to end encrypted, it won't fallback to plain text, etc.

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#65

Post by thereticent »

libraryatnight wrote: post #47
dylan604 wrote: post #14

I remember back in the 90s exchanging PGP keys with my roommate to exchange encrypted emails. It was supposed to be so easy. Just 12 simple steps. Every time.

at least you had a friend to email! I couldn't get any of my friends to do it. "Man we can encrypt our emails." "But why..." "It'd be cool" "This seems hard." "Come on, exchange keys with me." "I don't want to make one."

My high school friends and I settled for using Gain and Pidgin to enable the "secure" icon. :)

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#66

Post by jolux »

toast0 wrote: post #64
jolux wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You build it on SMTP because upgrading clients is easier than doing a clean slate redesign of ubiquitous internet protocols. Why not just toss the whole shebang and rebuild it below that layer? Signal Protocol seems to be pretty successful here. >Presumably we're discussing how an open protocol addition might gain any traction at all over walled garden protocols like Slack No, I'm asking how a new open protocol can…

> No, I'm asking how a new open protocol can be built on top of email in a way that maintains strong backwards compatibility while offering strong security guarantees, like end-to-end encryption. I don't think it's possible. You can't have strong security guarantees with backwards compatability, because backwards compatability requires plain text sending. Unless you're OK with limited guarantees like the UI will tell…

>You can't have strong security guarantees with backwards compatability, because backwards compatability requires plain text sending.

That's right.

>Unless you're OK with limited guarantees like the UI will tell you when the mail could be sent in plain text. Or if the UI tells you the message will be end to end encrypted, it won't fallback to plain text, etc.

This would require changing all the clients.

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#67

Post by skyfaller »

rendx wrote: post #56
skyfaller wrote: post #50

I used to love PGP, but I now think encrypted email is a bad idea. https://latacora.micro.blog/2020/02/19/stop-using-encrypted.... Better to use a protocol designed with encryption in mind, like Signal, to get forward secrecy, avoid leaking metadata, and have encryption always on by default. UPDATE: I have been reminded that PGP does not have to be used with email. I meant to say that I used to love using PGP with em…

That is the single most common misconception around PGP, and it comes up every time: (Open)PGP is first and foremost a flexible packet format (and other specs), and GnuPG is more of a CLI "library" to interface with it -- all of it. You can build something that hides metadata, you can have forward secrecy, and encryption always-on by default with PGP (and GnuPG). You can use it for whatever trust model you want, neit…

I understand that PGP doesn't have to be used with email. That is why I haven't commented on PGP, I'm saying that I think encrypted email is a bad idea, regardless of whether you use PGP or something else. We're posting in a thread about Thunderbird, an e-mail client :)

I agree that one great weakness of Signal is its centralization, and that decentralization is a great strength of email.

For a decentralized encrypted communication channel, Matrix may become a good option now that it is encrypted by default, but I haven't studied carefully the quality of its encryption beyond that yet.

Regardless, I really do think a new protocol is required for secure communications and that email won't cut it. If Signal or Matrix can't do the job for some applications, we'll just have to try again. I cannot recommend email for secure communications, and in any situation where security matters, I have to prioritize people's safety. In terms of security, the best that is available in the realm of encrypted email is not and cannot be good enough.

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#68

Post by skyfaller »

mapgrep wrote: post #57
skyfaller wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying that if you're building a professional secure environment, you don't need forward secrecy and it's ok to leak metadata? This doesn't make sense to me. The US gov't kills people based on metadata: https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/why-metadata-matters It's not possible to make email secure, the flaws are on the protocol level. To fix it, you would need to change it until it is no longer email.

I’m saying people will use email in any decent sized group over any significant length of time and it is very good to encrypt that email by default. If you’re saying Signal is strictly more secure I agee 100%. It’s just not suitable for using for large amounts of comms within a group. I wish they’d improve it and have even detailed features I think they should add (I made an HN thread when they got that donation from…

What about Matrix/Element for heavier communications? It's at least encrypted by default now, although I haven't carefully studied their security otherwise.

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#69

Post by Sharlin »

aerovistae wrote: post #15

Never seen a timestamp on the web that said "20 years ago". Wow. Reminds me of a tiny blog post I put up years ago about the future of archaeology. Forgive the silly site title. https://meaninglessdreams.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/156/

Recently I was delighted to find that Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5, one of the first websites I remember really immersing myself into, is still online and even updated every now and then! I think the site has been continuously up since 1994, and most of the content is over 20 years old, published when the series was originally run. It’s a real treasure trove for any B5 fan and likely the most comprehensive and well-curated collection of B5 knowledge in the world.

[1] http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html

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