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This can't be overstated. Even if we got the general public to sort of understand PGP and PKI there is going to be a significant number of users that don't und

by yaur 11y ago

This can't be overstated. Even if we got the general public to sort of understand PGP and PKI there is going to be a significant number of users that don't understand the difference between a password and a password protected key. The expectation is going to be that when they move to a new computer that their "password still works" and are going to be extremely angry when it doesn't.

zanny 11y ago
Thats why you cannot expect them to understan PGP and PKI. You want a sane default that can secure 99% of people and expose the guts to the last 1% through options menus. The perfect PGP secure email client would be cross platform and provide its own email server. The client has included trusted keys to communicate with upstream, but when you first start it you make your account and that generates you a signing and encryption key based off your password, backs it up on their server (remember, its password protected, they cannot access it despite backing it up) and then whenever you sign in on other device your keys are downloaded and just work. This basically turns PGP into username / password, but the only alternative is to use wifi to send your keys between devices when you first start your client of choice - IE, you start it for the first time, it says "do you already have an account? You say yes and it simply asks which PC on the lan has your keys, it communicates with it, you confirm on the other computer to send the keys, and it synchronizes your keys cross-device peer to peer. And I worry even that is too complicated for my grandmother to be willing to put up with to stop the NSA from reading her emails.
- c22 11y ago
  > The perfect PGP secure email client would be cross platform and provide its own email server. The client has included trusted keys to communicate with upstream, but when you first start it you make your account and that generates you a signing and encryption key based off your password, backs it up on their server (remember, its password protected, they cannot access it despite backing it up) and then whenever you sign in on other device your keys are downloaded and just work. > This basically turns PGP into username / password, but the only alternative is to use wifi to send your keys between devices when you first start your client of choice - IE, you start it for the first time, it says "do you already have an account? You say yes and it simply asks which PC on the lan has your keys, it communicates with it, you confirm on the other computer to send the keys, and it synchronizes your keys cross-device peer to peer. Or you could carry your keys around with you on a physical smart device that communicates over usb or nfc. This ux already seems to work well in corporate environments, it's just a matter of convincing consumers it's worthwhile and vendors to bake support into their products.
  - Freak_NL 11y ago
    If the FIDO U2F standard takes off, we may just see this happen. U2F keys do not include the functionality to hold OpenPGP keys, but they could help in having people understand the notion of a keychain for security.

by yaur 11y ago

zanny 11y ago

Thats why you cannot expect them to understan PGP and PKI. You want a sane default that can secure 99% of people and expose the guts to the last 1% through options menus. The perfect PGP secure email client would be cross platform and provide its own email server. The client has included trusted keys to communicate with upstream, but when you first start it you make your account and that generates you a signing and encryption key based off your password, backs it up on their server (remember, its password protected, they cannot access it despite backing it up) and then whenever you sign in on other device your keys are downloaded and just work. This basically turns PGP into username / password, but the only alternative is to use wifi to send your keys between devices when you first start your client of choice - IE, you start it for the first time, it says "do you already have an account? You say yes and it simply asks which PC on the lan has your keys, it communicates with it, you confirm on the other computer to send the keys, and it synchronizes your keys cross-device peer to peer. And I worry even that is too complicated for my grandmother to be willing to put up with to stop the NSA from reading her emails.

c22 11y ago
> The perfect PGP secure email client would be cross platform and provide its own email server. The client has included trusted keys to communicate with upstream, but when you first start it you make your account and that generates you a signing and encryption key based off your password, backs it up on their server (remember, its password protected, they cannot access it despite backing it up) and then whenever you sign in on other device your keys are downloaded and just work. > This basically turns PGP into username / password, but the only alternative is to use wifi to send your keys between devices when you first start your client of choice - IE, you start it for the first time, it says "do you already have an account? You say yes and it simply asks which PC on the lan has your keys, it communicates with it, you confirm on the other computer to send the keys, and it synchronizes your keys cross-device peer to peer. Or you could carry your keys around with you on a physical smart device that communicates over usb or nfc. This ux already seems to work well in corporate environments, it's just a matter of convincing consumers it's worthwhile and vendors to bake support into their products.
- Freak_NL 11y ago
  If the FIDO U2F standard takes off, we may just see this happen. U2F keys do not include the functionality to hold OpenPGP keys, but they could help in having people understand the notion of a keychain for security.