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One of the largest holes in encrypted communication is still the fact that the vast majority of email is still neither digitally signed, nor encrypted. And even
by Metus 3y ago
One of the largest holes in encrypted communication is still the fact that the vast majority of email is still neither digitally signed, nor encrypted. And even if they are, the usual schemes do not encrypt the subject line.
I wish there was something like Let's encrypt but for email. Just make it trivial to sign and encrypt your mail. Also, mail clients should give a huge warning for unencrypted and/or unsigned mail, just like browsers do with web sites. Right now, at least on Outlook for macOS, you only get a happy green padlock on signed email, if you ever receive one.
- alwayslikethis 3y agoI agree with the sentiment, but I question how useful this would really be. Most people nowadays unfortunately use web clients, so the keys are going to have to be stored somewhere else, since backing up a browser's local storage is no easy task. If you don't have sole access to keys, but rather the keys are controlled by the same entities that control your email, I don't think there will be any benefit.
- Metus 3y agoI have similar doubts as well. Especially considering that digital signatures and encryption do not protect against impersonation attacks, like phishing via facebok.com or other similar sounding domains, in either the case of websites or email. But without widespread use you don't even have the option.
- americanriver 3y agoThere are plenty of email users on IMAP, and they use web mail to host mail storage. The IMAP clients can do S/MIME (or PGP I suppose). The bigger problem is trustworthy user discovery service i.e. a directory to exchange public keys. This exists at an enterprise level (active directory) but not globally.
- 3c6bYDXLMj 3y agoUsually anyone that buys into the viability of PGP email will also tell me with a straight face that the MIT keyserver is completely appropriate for civilians.
- iggldiggl 3y agoSearch is another problem, because instead of simply being able to rely on server-side full text search, every client needs to download all mails, decrypt them all and then create and maintain its own local search index.
- woodruffw 3y agoI think Latacora's (famous?) post[1] sums the situation up here nicely: email is designed in such a way that precludes an encryption scheme that actually works for ordinary users. Even power users consistently fail to use email encryption correctly. If we care about secure communication, then we should be nudging users towards protocols that enable encryption, rather than fighting against it. For 99% of cases, that probably means Signal. [1]: https://www.latacora.com/blog/2020/02/19/stop-using-encrypted/ https://www.latacora.com/blog/2020/02/19/stop-using-encrypte...
- Metus 3y agoI don't think that Signal is a proper substitute for anything that email is used for. Maybe it would be better to work on more secure successors or extensions to email.
- woodruffw 3y agoLots of people, including my parents, use email as an asynchronous messaging platform. For those people, Signal is an eminently suitable replacement. As the post points out: email cannot be extended into a secure position. Attempts to do so either fail to interoperate or fail outright.
- paulryanrogers 3y agoEmail as a concept can evolve. We can break backward compatiblity. Call it email v2 and include some killer features. If enough major players and users get involved then it'll happen. My hope is it'll be something like Dark Mail, yet with a carve out for enterprise recipients to inject their controls and anti-malware before end-user delivery. (To combat spam and malware.)
- Metus 3y agoIn theory the giants that already hold the vast majority of all email communications - like Microsoft and Alphabet - are in a prime position to introduce a successor, hopefully this time with a receipt so the last argument in favour of fax dies off. At the same time, they have no proper motivation to do so.
- throwawaaarrgh 3y agoThis is actually the best example for why encryption isn't a human right. Postal mail isn't encrypted, telephone calls aren't encrypted, and the UN hasn't made a declaration about that. Why is that? It's because encryption is a red herring. The theory that encryption is going to stop government surveillance is ridiculous. Even a perfect technology is not going to override national politics. Any government oppressive enough to require surveillance of its citizens will not be stopped by encryption. They will just block it or require a backdoor, or find yet more exploits that they won't announce in order to take advantage silently (whether it's the government directly, or one of the many 0day-for-pay players) Either way they will enforce their will, until the citizens reform their government. You can't tech your way out of politics. You want an end to surveillance? Then go get involved in politics! Force your government to stop surveiling its citizens! Don't wait for someone else do the heavy lifting for you.
- dividendpayee 3y agoPostal mail isn't encrypted because it's not viable for ordinary citizens to encrypt physical mail. However, tampering with mail, or opening someone else's, is a federal crime with harsh penalties attached. The message is clear: "postal secrecy" is highly valued.
- userbinator 3y agoHowever, tampering with mail, or opening someone else's, is a federal crime with harsh penalties attached. ...and yet the government can still do that if it truly wants to.
- hanniabu 3y agoI'm pretty sure Skiff encrypts everything
- amilich 3y agoHello :) Skiff cannot access email content, subject, and header info. To/from/cc/bcc fields are not stored end-to-end encrypted, though.