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Putting aside all the crypto complications, the number one thing a user needs to know is not to ever put something sensitive in the subject field. You know, th
by anotherhue 2y ago
Putting aside all the crypto complications, the number one thing a user needs to know is not to ever put something sensitive in the subject field.
You know, that huge box that is literally the second field your email client presents to you. The dissonance is catastrophic.
As far as I can tell the number one real world use case for PGP mail is computer people cosplaying as spooks.
It is the user interface that is insecure, and there's no fixing that.
- tptacek 2y agoI actually think the Subject header is only the third-worst thing about attempting to secure email; the first is that there's no mechanism in SMTP to force encryption (everybody who has ever done a long-term encrypted email system has seen this happen; in fact, if someone told me they hadn't seen an accidentally-unencrypted reply, it would be a "tell" to me that they'd never seriously used encrypted email), and my second concern would be that everyone's email applications include "search", implying archives of plaintext email. In fourth place: from a theory perspective, PGP's keying/identity system guarantees eventual compromise, which is why no modern messaging system works that way.