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I've seen a lot of how-to use PGP writeups, but I haven't found a single good one that helps both windows and mac users (or linux). And by good, I mean somethin

I've seen a lot of how-to use PGP writeups, but I haven't found a single good one that helps both windows and mac users (or linux). And by good, I mean something that walks the user through the process of securely creating a key, protecting their private key, explaining the difference between a public key and a private key, explaining how to PGP sign an email, PGP encrypt an email properly, encrypt files, decrypt files, upload public keys to a key server (or why you shouldn't), how to decrypt an email... and anything else you need to know to not make any mistakes that would compromise yourself. PGP is great but there are a lot of ways you can make a mistake. I dream of a day when secure communications is simple and usable by all.

teekert 11y ago
I agree but this comes quite close (minus the walk-troughs) https://www.mailvelope.com/ https://www.mailvelope.com/ Like with many things there is this "Ah that's pretty smart on several levels" with public private key crypto. But it takes a while and some repeated explaining, at least for me it did. This pasage in Little Brother (by Cory Doctorow) introduced me to it in a better way than ever: https://www.wattpad.com/12853166-little-brother-chapter-10 https://www.wattpad.com/12853166-little-brother-chapter-10
jandrese 11y ago
The big huge thing GPG installs tend to gloss over is publishing your damn key. It doesn't help that the online keystores tend to be poorly supported by mail clients (why is it such a challenge to auto-lookup emails?), but the alternative of mailing your key around so other people can use it is a joke. If you want the masses using encrypted email the key distribution needs to be as seamless as possible. Right now it is the opposite of that. Key management in GPG is a straight up nightmare of dozens of keystores and downloading text files and arcane commandlines. Public key distribution is the elephant in the room with encrypted email. Well, that and the fact that so many people use webmail now and all major webmail providers have completely given up on encryption. I've even seen arguments that since Javascript can never be fully trusted that webmail will never support encryption. Those arguments feel a bit like the "if it can't be perfect it is useless" argument you see a lot in crypto circles that keeps people using entirely unsafe technologies instead of safer partial solutions.

teekert 11y ago

I agree but this comes quite close (minus the walk-troughs) https://www.mailvelope.com/ https://www.mailvelope.com/ Like with many things there is this "Ah that's pretty smart on several levels" with public private key crypto. But it takes a while and some repeated explaining, at least for me it did. This pasage in Little Brother (by Cory Doctorow) introduced me to it in a better way than ever: https://www.wattpad.com/12853166-little-brother-chapter-10 https://www.wattpad.com/12853166-little-brother-chapter-10

jandrese 11y ago

The big huge thing GPG installs tend to gloss over is publishing your damn key. It doesn't help that the online keystores tend to be poorly supported by mail clients (why is it such a challenge to auto-lookup emails?), but the alternative of mailing your key around so other people can use it is a joke. If you want the masses using encrypted email the key distribution needs to be as seamless as possible. Right now it is the opposite of that. Key management in GPG is a straight up nightmare of dozens of keystores and downloading text files and arcane commandlines. Public key distribution is the elephant in the room with encrypted email. Well, that and the fact that so many people use webmail now and all major webmail providers have completely given up on encryption. I've even seen arguments that since Javascript can never be fully trusted that webmail will never support encryption. Those arguments feel a bit like the "if it can't be perfect it is useless" argument you see a lot in crypto circles that keeps people using entirely unsafe technologies instead of safer partial solutions.