9 ms·

Roundcube Webmail 1.2.0 released with PGP support

218 points by weeha 10y ago

arviewer 10y ago
I guess this means you have to upload your private key to the server. I always wonder what happens when the key is copied and used by someone else. Can you revoke the key? What happens to sent and received messages from the past? Do you still need the old key (private or public) to read those? Is there a private master key that can create a private sub key that can be used to upload to that server?
- remael 10y ago
  You don't have to upload the key. It also supports the mailvelope browser extension.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- d33 10y ago
  Yes, you can revoke the key and publish the revocation. This means that it will be flagged as revoked in the server keys and assuming that senders keep their GPG keybase up to date with server keys, they'll get a warning that this key is out of date. All e-mails already encrypted with the key can still be decrypted though. As for the second part of your post, you're probably asking about this: https://alexcabal.com/creating-the-perfect-gpg-keypair/ https://alexcabal.com/creating-the-perfect-gpg-keypair/
- fahrradflucht 10y ago
  If you don't use the browser extension you would probably only want to use this feature if you control that Roundcube instance yourself because yes if you upload it to the server and your key gets lost all past and future communication with that key is only as secure as your keys password.
- davidcollantes 10y ago
  If you generated a revocation certificate, yes, you can revoke it. Otherwise no. The private key is protected (should be) by a password, so even in the event it gets compromised it should be OK. Encrypted messages from the past are unreadable, unless you have the private key. No private "master" that I know of.
- elgaton 10y ago
  Encryption is also supported via a browser plugin, so it's not necessary to upload the private key to the server. Regarding your questions: 1) yes, you can revoke the key by generating a revocation certificate and publishing it on a public keyserver (of course, your correspondents would need to refresh the public key from the keyserver to know it was revoked, which is something they might not do); 2) sent and received messages from the past, unfortunately, are readable by the person who is in possession of the private key, if such key is not protected by a strong password; 3) yes, you still need the old private key to read the old messages; 4) you can generate a master key (to be kept strictly offline) and several, frequently rotating subkeys for encryption purposes. It's not a silver bullet solution (in the sense that a thief would still have access to all your subkeys, meaning he could read all your messages up to the point the keys are stolen, but it mitigates the damage somehow). See here: https://alexcabal.com/creating-the-perfect-gpg-keypair https://alexcabal.com/creating-the-perfect-gpg-keypair
- stephenr 10y ago
  Actually I think it means support for browser plugins that will handle the PGP part.
embik 10y ago
For everyone who (like me) wondered what happened to "Roundcube Next", they released a statement 8 days ago[1] about it. Sounds like they had personal problems getting in the way. Glad to see the project is still alive. [1] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roundcube-next--2#/updates https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roundcube-next--2#/update...
- teekert 10y ago
  Thanx for the update, I tweeted them repeatedly, never getting any reply. It looks pretty bad that the last tweet is so old. In the meantime, I've been using Nylas N1 (local mail client) and ownCloud mail (webmail), both have become pretty good!
  - grinich 10y ago
    Thanks for the kind words! (I work at Nylas.) We actually have PGP support coming soon as well. ;)
    - teekert 10y ago
      Oh, thanx for the product! One question, I just read here on HN that Nylas stores certain data on Nylas servers. I actually thought it was just a local mail client like Thunderbird (only better looking and more modern). It's not very clear from the website what exactly happens to my mail and login credentials, do you have some pointers?
      - grinich 10y ago
        Sure, here's a bit more info: https://support.nylas.com/hc/en-us/articles/217518207-Why-does-Nylas-N1-sync-email-via-the-cloud- https://support.nylas.com/hc/en-us/articles/217518207-Why-do... A bit more here: nylas.com/blog/nylas-pro We've spent a lot of time on this and the setup screens pretty clearly say this syncs your data to the cloud for performance and speed. You can also write me directly if you have specific questions. Thanks!
zby 10y ago
If PGP was managed by the browser we would be able to sign everything we post on the web, not just the emails.
- lmm 10y ago
  There are extensions that do this. A standardized interface between site and browser-managed crypto is what's really needed though.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
Sephr 10y ago
It's nice to hear about the server-side PGP support (searching!), although it's unfortunate that the client-side solution, Mailvelope (or more specifically, the OpenPGP.js library it uses), still doesn't support any ECC algorithms. Fortunately Google's End-to-End extension does support ECC algorithms (no idea if it integrates with Roundcube though), but it seems like it still isn't ready for production distribution on the Chrome Web Store yet.
- mikekchar 10y ago
  I may be wrong (and hope to be corrected!), but I think that End-to-End is never expected to be in the Chrome Web Store. I think they feel that this kind of encryption is too complicated for the average user. It's intended more for "power users" who already know that they want it.
  - SquareWheel 10y ago
    They've discouraged people from compiling builds and then uploading it to the store, but I believe this is because they don't want a half-implemented/untested PGP library posted -- especially one with their name on it. I haven't seen any concrete plans about how they plan to distribute it when it's done, but I didn't get the same sense about them not wanting to upload it themselves. In fact, I think Google would be thrilled to push proper end-to-end support in Gmail.
    - riprowan 10y ago
      Sorry if this is a dumb question, but if Gmail is e2e, how can Google harvest user data from it?
      - SquareWheel 10y ago
        They couldn't. They would have to show ads from other history and not the email's contents. This would also break features such as (server-side) search and reminders (eg. flight tomorrow) via Google Now. End-to-end is a tradeoff. But presumably they wouldn't be working on the technology if they weren't prepared to offer it in some fashion. Probably as an opt-in? Hopefully a Googler can offer more insight as I can only speculate.
benbristow 10y ago
Rainloop already has this. http://www.rainloop.net/ http://www.rainloop.net/ Been using it for a year or so now, it's fantastic and has never let me down.
- gravypod 10y ago
  I came here to comment about this. Rainloop is amazing. It also has some extra security features for the end user. For instance, you can tell Rainloop to proxy images from the email and serve them to you instead of your browser getting them from a remote source. It's amazing because you get faster load times and don't leak your desktop IP, only whatever server your running Rainloop on. The only thing it's lacking is PGP, which is very sad.
  - unethical_ban 10y ago
    Wait, the parent said Rainloop has PGP. That's why they brought it up.
    - JohnTHaller 10y ago
      The features page states: " Client Side OpenPGP (JS) "
      - gravypod 10y ago
        It's not fully implemented from what I understand.
  - DoubleMalt 10y ago
    How is the search in Rainloop?
- mrmondo 10y ago
  That does look nice, looks like they've come quite a way very quickly too. Still a little put off by the idea of host PHP apps for such critical systems but hats probably my internal bias towards using Ruby/Python/Go.
rmoriz 10y ago
I wish someone would do this for S/MIME. S/MIME has native support in many MUAs, even Mail.app on iOS. http://smime.io/ http://smime.io/ https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/4977 https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/4977
- lmm 10y ago
  Can you get a free S/MIME certificate? Even if you could, S/MIME leaves you dependent on CA infrastructure that's often state-controlled.
  - elgaton 10y ago
    StartSSL [1] and COMODO [2] still offer them (of course, there's still the CA compromise issue you mentioned). Keep in mind, however, that a hierarchical, centralized trust model can still be useful (e.g. in medium-to-large organizations, where having an internal CA and delegating identity verification to a few knowledgeable employees is more practical than having everyone build a web of trust). [1] https://www.startssl.com/ https://www.startssl.com/ [2] https://www.comodo.com/home/email-security/free-email-certificate.php https://www.comodo.com/home/email-security/free-email-certif...
    - lmm 10y ago
      > Keep in mind, however, that a hierarchical, centralized trust model can still be useful (e.g. in medium-to-large organizations, where having an internal CA and delegating identity verification to a few knowledgeable employees is more practical than having everyone build a web of trust). Sure, but it's easy to build that kind of model on top of OpenPGP (just have an organizational signing key and tell everyone to trust that), whereas it's almost impossible to build a CA-independent model on top of SSL.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- noinsight 10y ago
  I'm waiting for Let's Encrypt to start offering S/MIME certificates.
bechampion 10y ago
ha i remember long time ago chasing for the perfect webmail system.. before gmail of course. Horde,Roundcube, squirrel god... I've never found the perfect one!
- ryanlol 10y ago
  How about OWA? Despite requiring windows, it's a pretty solid product.
  - bechampion 10y ago
    Well, this quest I'm referring to was probably 2003/4 , I don't know what was the state of owa then.
  - Bombthecat 10y ago
    Owa?
    - bechampion 10y ago
      outlook web access
  - jethro_tell 10y ago
    It doesn't require Windows. It's a web app . . . that is pretty rough.
    - ryanlol 10y ago
      I don't think you can run the web app on linux.
      - jethro_tell 10y ago
        Based on what? I run the web app on my Linux box for Calendaring and sometimes email. Most of the time I use mutt with imap for email. But I run the web app 40+ hours per week.
tiatia 10y ago
Nice. But I prefer Afterlogic http://www.afterlogic.com/ http://www.afterlogic.com/ Wish I was open source/freeware
- mrmondo 10y ago
  Hmmm... They give out an option of PHP or .NET, not sure I'd really like to run either of those?
xrorre 10y ago
Here's an old XSS exploit for Roundcube from 2013: https://www.intelligentexploit.com/view-details.html?id=16961 https://www.intelligentexploit.com/view-details.html?id=1696... I still use RC despite the long history of XSS attacks against it. Luckily RC uses progressive enhancement, so it still works with JS turned off. I just assume emails can still execute JS in 2016? Perhaps it's wrong of me to use RC with JS turned off as a preventative measure, but you have to adore that user interface! It's the only reason I choose RC over other self-hosted email web apps (and there are few to choose from in this space). I like the simplicity of Squirrel-mail, but Roundcube looks and feels too good not to use.
- ryanlol 10y ago
  What about the various RCE bugs, do those not worry you?
- dguido 10y ago
  You're right. Before any integration of a server-side PGP key like this, they ought to have deployed some basic hygiene like a strict Content Security Policy (CSP) and a better sanitization library like HTMLpurifier. I don't trust webmail software, and definitely not PHP webmail software, to hold my keys for me otherwise.
xvilka 10y ago
I recommend to try also Mailpile [1], which was built with security in mind. [1] https://www.mailpile.is/ https://www.mailpile.is/
- belorn 10y ago
  I will be doing that as soon the 1.0 release is out and available as a debian package. Any idea how stable the current beta version is?
- bildung 10y ago
  As far as I understood Mailpile is a mail user agent, so not comparable. Roundcube runs on a server, Mailpile runs on your own computer.
  - taneliv 10y ago
    "You can [then] access it over the network using your web browser" https://www.mailpile.is/faq/#wha-2 https://www.mailpile.is/faq/#wha-2 seems to challenge your knowledge. I don't know if using it so compromises privacy in unexpected ways, or indeed even works satisfactorily; I am not a user.
    - bildung 10y ago
      It now indeed seems to be the planned path to create a full webmail service out of Mailpile. Though right now the developers still say its "written as a personal application": https://www.mailpile.is/faq/#tec-8 https://www.mailpile.is/faq/#tec-8
    - fuzz_junket 10y ago
      It's designed to run on your local machine and be accessed by your browser. You can run it on a server if you like, but the give-away is the fact that it only supports single users — the original conception was for personal use. I heard they're moving in the direction of supporting multiple users, which will be fantastic. Then you really can use it as a proper webmail client for a small email server.
CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/5266 https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/5266 Legacy PHP code (as old as 5.3.7) strikes again.
mrmondo 10y ago
I get the feeling we need a 'gogs of a webmail app'
BorisMelnik 10y ago
nice, I use Roundcube a lot for new clients looking to set up their email for the first time. Glad to support this project, and really stoked it has PGP.

218 points by weeha 10y ago

I guess this means you have to upload your private key to the server. I always wonder what happens when the key is copied and used by someone else. Can you revoke the key? What happens to sent and received messages from the past? Do you still need the old key (private or public) to read those? Is there a private master key that can create a private sub key that can be used to upload to that server?

remael 10y ago
You don't have to upload the key. It also supports the mailvelope browser extension.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
d33 10y ago
Yes, you can revoke the key and publish the revocation. This means that it will be flagged as revoked in the server keys and assuming that senders keep their GPG keybase up to date with server keys, they'll get a warning that this key is out of date. All e-mails already encrypted with the key can still be decrypted though. As for the second part of your post, you're probably asking about this: https://alexcabal.com/creating-the-perfect-gpg-keypair/ https://alexcabal.com/creating-the-perfect-gpg-keypair/
fahrradflucht 10y ago
If you don't use the browser extension you would probably only want to use this feature if you control that Roundcube instance yourself because yes if you upload it to the server and your key gets lost all past and future communication with that key is only as secure as your keys password.
davidcollantes 10y ago
If you generated a revocation certificate, yes, you can revoke it. Otherwise no. The private key is protected (should be) by a password, so even in the event it gets compromised it should be OK. Encrypted messages from the past are unreadable, unless you have the private key. No private "master" that I know of.
elgaton 10y ago
Encryption is also supported via a browser plugin, so it's not necessary to upload the private key to the server. Regarding your questions: 1) yes, you can revoke the key by generating a revocation certificate and publishing it on a public keyserver (of course, your correspondents would need to refresh the public key from the keyserver to know it was revoked, which is something they might not do); 2) sent and received messages from the past, unfortunately, are readable by the person who is in possession of the private key, if such key is not protected by a strong password; 3) yes, you still need the old private key to read the old messages; 4) you can generate a master key (to be kept strictly offline) and several, frequently rotating subkeys for encryption purposes. It's not a silver bullet solution (in the sense that a thief would still have access to all your subkeys, meaning he could read all your messages up to the point the keys are stolen, but it mitigates the damage somehow). See here: https://alexcabal.com/creating-the-perfect-gpg-keypair https://alexcabal.com/creating-the-perfect-gpg-keypair
stephenr 10y ago
Actually I think it means support for browser plugins that will handle the PGP part.

embik 10y ago

For everyone who (like me) wondered what happened to "Roundcube Next", they released a statement 8 days ago[1] about it. Sounds like they had personal problems getting in the way. Glad to see the project is still alive. [1] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roundcube-next--2#/updates https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roundcube-next--2#/update...

teekert 10y ago
Thanx for the update, I tweeted them repeatedly, never getting any reply. It looks pretty bad that the last tweet is so old. In the meantime, I've been using Nylas N1 (local mail client) and ownCloud mail (webmail), both have become pretty good!
- grinich 10y ago
  Thanks for the kind words! (I work at Nylas.) We actually have PGP support coming soon as well. ;)
  - teekert 10y ago
    Oh, thanx for the product! One question, I just read here on HN that Nylas stores certain data on Nylas servers. I actually thought it was just a local mail client like Thunderbird (only better looking and more modern). It's not very clear from the website what exactly happens to my mail and login credentials, do you have some pointers?
    - grinich 10y ago
      Sure, here's a bit more info: https://support.nylas.com/hc/en-us/articles/217518207-Why-does-Nylas-N1-sync-email-via-the-cloud- https://support.nylas.com/hc/en-us/articles/217518207-Why-do... A bit more here: nylas.com/blog/nylas-pro We've spent a lot of time on this and the setup screens pretty clearly say this syncs your data to the cloud for performance and speed. You can also write me directly if you have specific questions. Thanks!

zby 10y ago

If PGP was managed by the browser we would be able to sign everything we post on the web, not just the emails.

lmm 10y ago
There are extensions that do this. A standardized interface between site and browser-managed crypto is what's really needed though.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

Sephr 10y ago

It's nice to hear about the server-side PGP support (searching!), although it's unfortunate that the client-side solution, Mailvelope (or more specifically, the OpenPGP.js library it uses), still doesn't support any ECC algorithms. Fortunately Google's End-to-End extension does support ECC algorithms (no idea if it integrates with Roundcube though), but it seems like it still isn't ready for production distribution on the Chrome Web Store yet.

mikekchar 10y ago
I may be wrong (and hope to be corrected!), but I think that End-to-End is never expected to be in the Chrome Web Store. I think they feel that this kind of encryption is too complicated for the average user. It's intended more for "power users" who already know that they want it.
- SquareWheel 10y ago
  They've discouraged people from compiling builds and then uploading it to the store, but I believe this is because they don't want a half-implemented/untested PGP library posted -- especially one with their name on it. I haven't seen any concrete plans about how they plan to distribute it when it's done, but I didn't get the same sense about them not wanting to upload it themselves. In fact, I think Google would be thrilled to push proper end-to-end support in Gmail.
  - riprowan 10y ago
    Sorry if this is a dumb question, but if Gmail is e2e, how can Google harvest user data from it?
    - SquareWheel 10y ago
      They couldn't. They would have to show ads from other history and not the email's contents. This would also break features such as (server-side) search and reminders (eg. flight tomorrow) via Google Now. End-to-end is a tradeoff. But presumably they wouldn't be working on the technology if they weren't prepared to offer it in some fashion. Probably as an opt-in? Hopefully a Googler can offer more insight as I can only speculate.

benbristow 10y ago

Rainloop already has this. http://www.rainloop.net/ http://www.rainloop.net/ Been using it for a year or so now, it's fantastic and has never let me down.

gravypod 10y ago
I came here to comment about this. Rainloop is amazing. It also has some extra security features for the end user. For instance, you can tell Rainloop to proxy images from the email and serve them to you instead of your browser getting them from a remote source. It's amazing because you get faster load times and don't leak your desktop IP, only whatever server your running Rainloop on. The only thing it's lacking is PGP, which is very sad.
- unethical_ban 10y ago
  Wait, the parent said Rainloop has PGP. That's why they brought it up.
  - JohnTHaller 10y ago
    The features page states: " Client Side OpenPGP (JS) "
    - gravypod 10y ago
      It's not fully implemented from what I understand.
- DoubleMalt 10y ago
  How is the search in Rainloop?
mrmondo 10y ago
That does look nice, looks like they've come quite a way very quickly too. Still a little put off by the idea of host PHP apps for such critical systems but hats probably my internal bias towards using Ruby/Python/Go.

rmoriz 10y ago

I wish someone would do this for S/MIME. S/MIME has native support in many MUAs, even Mail.app on iOS. http://smime.io/ http://smime.io/ https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/4977 https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/4977

lmm 10y ago
Can you get a free S/MIME certificate? Even if you could, S/MIME leaves you dependent on CA infrastructure that's often state-controlled.
- elgaton 10y ago
  StartSSL [1] and COMODO [2] still offer them (of course, there's still the CA compromise issue you mentioned). Keep in mind, however, that a hierarchical, centralized trust model can still be useful (e.g. in medium-to-large organizations, where having an internal CA and delegating identity verification to a few knowledgeable employees is more practical than having everyone build a web of trust). [1] https://www.startssl.com/ https://www.startssl.com/ [2] https://www.comodo.com/home/email-security/free-email-certificate.php https://www.comodo.com/home/email-security/free-email-certif...
  - lmm 10y ago
    > Keep in mind, however, that a hierarchical, centralized trust model can still be useful (e.g. in medium-to-large organizations, where having an internal CA and delegating identity verification to a few knowledgeable employees is more practical than having everyone build a web of trust). Sure, but it's easy to build that kind of model on top of OpenPGP (just have an organizational signing key and tell everyone to trust that), whereas it's almost impossible to build a CA-independent model on top of SSL.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
noinsight 10y ago
I'm waiting for Let's Encrypt to start offering S/MIME certificates.

bechampion 10y ago

ha i remember long time ago chasing for the perfect webmail system.. before gmail of course. Horde,Roundcube, squirrel god... I've never found the perfect one!

ryanlol 10y ago
How about OWA? Despite requiring windows, it's a pretty solid product.
- bechampion 10y ago
  Well, this quest I'm referring to was probably 2003/4 , I don't know what was the state of owa then.
- Bombthecat 10y ago
  Owa?
  - bechampion 10y ago
    outlook web access
- jethro_tell 10y ago
  It doesn't require Windows. It's a web app . . . that is pretty rough.
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    I don't think you can run the web app on linux.
    - jethro_tell 10y ago
      Based on what? I run the web app on my Linux box for Calendaring and sometimes email. Most of the time I use mutt with imap for email. But I run the web app 40+ hours per week.

tiatia 10y ago

Nice. But I prefer Afterlogic http://www.afterlogic.com/ http://www.afterlogic.com/ Wish I was open source/freeware

mrmondo 10y ago
Hmmm... They give out an option of PHP or .NET, not sure I'd really like to run either of those?

xrorre 10y ago

Here's an old XSS exploit for Roundcube from 2013: https://www.intelligentexploit.com/view-details.html?id=16961 https://www.intelligentexploit.com/view-details.html?id=1696... I still use RC despite the long history of XSS attacks against it. Luckily RC uses progressive enhancement, so it still works with JS turned off. I just assume emails can still execute JS in 2016? Perhaps it's wrong of me to use RC with JS turned off as a preventative measure, but you have to adore that user interface! It's the only reason I choose RC over other self-hosted email web apps (and there are few to choose from in this space). I like the simplicity of Squirrel-mail, but Roundcube looks and feels too good not to use.

ryanlol 10y ago
What about the various RCE bugs, do those not worry you?
dguido 10y ago
You're right. Before any integration of a server-side PGP key like this, they ought to have deployed some basic hygiene like a strict Content Security Policy (CSP) and a better sanitization library like HTMLpurifier. I don't trust webmail software, and definitely not PHP webmail software, to hold my keys for me otherwise.

xvilka 10y ago

I recommend to try also Mailpile [1], which was built with security in mind. [1] https://www.mailpile.is/ https://www.mailpile.is/

belorn 10y ago
I will be doing that as soon the 1.0 release is out and available as a debian package. Any idea how stable the current beta version is?
bildung 10y ago
As far as I understood Mailpile is a mail user agent, so not comparable. Roundcube runs on a server, Mailpile runs on your own computer.
- taneliv 10y ago
  "You can [then] access it over the network using your web browser" https://www.mailpile.is/faq/#wha-2 https://www.mailpile.is/faq/#wha-2 seems to challenge your knowledge. I don't know if using it so compromises privacy in unexpected ways, or indeed even works satisfactorily; I am not a user.
  - bildung 10y ago
    It now indeed seems to be the planned path to create a full webmail service out of Mailpile. Though right now the developers still say its "written as a personal application": https://www.mailpile.is/faq/#tec-8 https://www.mailpile.is/faq/#tec-8
  - fuzz_junket 10y ago
    It's designed to run on your local machine and be accessed by your browser. You can run it on a server if you like, but the give-away is the fact that it only supports single users — the original conception was for personal use. I heard they're moving in the direction of supporting multiple users, which will be fantastic. Then you really can use it as a proper webmail client for a small email server.

CiPHPerCoder 10y ago

https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/5266 https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/5266 Legacy PHP code (as old as 5.3.7) strikes again.

mrmondo 10y ago

I get the feeling we need a 'gogs of a webmail app'

BorisMelnik 10y ago

nice, I use Roundcube a lot for new clients looking to set up their email for the first time. Glad to support this project, and really stoked it has PGP.