State of Email Encryption

[skanks]

I believe in email encryption. But I also believe it should be fully integrated and automatic. I should never have to encrypt or decrypt anything or have to fetch anybody's key. I want encryption to just work.

Does anybody use encryption ever? How close are we? Is there any chance we can get this working within gmail?

[Jonathan]

Joe had a GMail GPG plugin. I think key management would have to dealt with in a separate program.

My current key is nearing the end of its useful life. I should probably change to a modern algorithm.

My understanding of key management is that the startup costs are pretty high: you need some folks within an existing public web of trust to sign your key so a keyserver can provide folks with a useful key for you. I have not done this myself. Try googling keysigning parties in your area and report back here.

[quantus]

FireGPG thread

[quantus]

My understanding of key management is that the startup costs are pretty high: you need some folks within an existing public web of trust to sign your key so a keyserver can provide folks with a useful key for you. I have not done this myself. Try googling keysigning parties in your area and report back here.

I know I posted this already in the FireGPG thread, but it's relevant. Don't let this happen to you, Neal: http://www.xkcd.com/364/

So, with these webs of trust, how do you revoke signatures if you make a mistake like in the xkcd comic?

[quantus]

huh, there's apparently been quite a bit of updates since I've last played with this... I guess I'm gonna have to try it out on my laptop at home. I'd do it now, but I can't install WinGPG on this machine No admin rights.

[George]

How timely. I spent half an hour today trying to open an encrypted e-mail before finally giving up and finding a copy of the attached document on a network a share drive. Every time I clicked, Outlook froze the system for several minutes before finally telling me it couldn't decrypt the mail.