3 ms·

If you hack into my email account, you still can't read any password reset emails that are sent to it: https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incomin

If you hack into my email account, you still can't read any password reset emails that are sent to it: https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_Email https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_E...

krickle 14y ago
This is a fantastic idea.
wahsd 14y ago
That's all wonderful, really; but it's not exactly practical for everyone to do for themselves.
- mike-cardwell 14y ago
  No it's not, but anyone who runs their own mail server can do it, and anyone who provides a mail service for others could provide it as an option. Hell, even Google could implement it, and add a simple "Upload your public key" option to their preferences page. Maybe doing it as one of their Google Labs things. Obviously, they could implement it in a much more efficient fashion than the implementation I provided.
Groxx 14y ago
I really like the idea, but what if someone hacks into your email server and just turns off the encryption step / reads the incoming traffic? I assume they won't have your private key in that case, but crazy-few sites require and check (or even allow?) encrypted emails as validation, so they could still masquerade as you until someone checked the numbers.
- mike-cardwell 14y ago
  This is addressed in the blog post: "There are obvious caveats to this solution though. If somebody gets root on my server or access to the network, they can sniff the emails on the way in before they're encrypted. This wont help them access historical email which was encrypted before they started though. Also, if somebody installs a trojan on my laptop it's game over; they can grab my private PGP key, and use a keylogger to get the password for the key." There is no "perfect" solution. There will always be attack vectors. I just removed a few. Specifically, compromising my email account, or compromising one of my clients (in certain ways).
thaumaturgy 14y ago
I remember this showing up on HN before! It's really cool, and it's been on my to-do list for my mail server ever since.
bigiain 14y ago
OK, so now I know that I need to hack your dns server or your registrar instead - then I'd just publish MX records for your domain and head off to all the "I forgot my password" links I can find. It's turtles^h^h^h^h^h^h^hsecurity problems all the way down…
- mike-cardwell 14y ago
  Yes. I am aware that there a further attacks, and I mention that in the blog post. There is still significant security value in doing what I'm doing though.
  - bigiain 14y ago
    For sure - sorry if I gave the impression that I thought otherwise. There's a big win in making it impossible for me to trawl through all your old mail looking for "interesting" things. It's a very nice idea.

krickle 14y ago

This is a fantastic idea.

wahsd 14y ago

That's all wonderful, really; but it's not exactly practical for everyone to do for themselves.

mike-cardwell 14y ago
No it's not, but anyone who runs their own mail server can do it, and anyone who provides a mail service for others could provide it as an option. Hell, even Google could implement it, and add a simple "Upload your public key" option to their preferences page. Maybe doing it as one of their Google Labs things. Obviously, they could implement it in a much more efficient fashion than the implementation I provided.

Groxx 14y ago

I really like the idea, but what if someone hacks into your email server and just turns off the encryption step / reads the incoming traffic? I assume they won't have your private key in that case, but crazy-few sites require and check (or even allow?) encrypted emails as validation, so they could still masquerade as you until someone checked the numbers.

mike-cardwell 14y ago
This is addressed in the blog post: "There are obvious caveats to this solution though. If somebody gets root on my server or access to the network, they can sniff the emails on the way in before they're encrypted. This wont help them access historical email which was encrypted before they started though. Also, if somebody installs a trojan on my laptop it's game over; they can grab my private PGP key, and use a keylogger to get the password for the key." There is no "perfect" solution. There will always be attack vectors. I just removed a few. Specifically, compromising my email account, or compromising one of my clients (in certain ways).

thaumaturgy 14y ago

I remember this showing up on HN before! It's really cool, and it's been on my to-do list for my mail server ever since.

bigiain 14y ago

OK, so now I know that I need to hack your dns server or your registrar instead - then I'd just publish MX records for your domain and head off to all the "I forgot my password" links I can find. It's turtles^h^h^h^h^h^h^hsecurity problems all the way down…

mike-cardwell 14y ago
Yes. I am aware that there a further attacks, and I mention that in the blog post. There is still significant security value in doing what I'm doing though.
- bigiain 14y ago
  For sure - sorry if I gave the impression that I thought otherwise. There's a big win in making it impossible for me to trawl through all your old mail looking for "interesting" things. It's a very nice idea.