Encrypt and Sign Gmail messages with FireGPG

Linux.com (Same owners as Slashdot) has a story up about FireGPG and says "Gmail may be an excellent Web-based email application, but there is no easy way to use it with privacy tools like GnuPG. The FireGPG extension for Firefox is designed to solve this problem. It integrates nicely into Gmail's interface and allows you...
Encrypt and sign Gmail messages with FireGPG

Comments

Re:And for the chat

[stinerman]

Note that OTR is "better". From the OTR site:

How is this different from the gaim-encryption plugin?
        The gaim-encryption plugin provides encryption and authentication, but not deniability or perfect forward secrecy. If an attacker or a virus gets access to your machine, all of your past gaim-encryption conversations are retroactively compromised. Further, since all of the messages are digitally signed, there is difficult-to-deny proof that you said what you did: not what we want for a supposedly private conversation!

Re:Nerds with something to hide

[fluch]

It is just that I don't want anybody to intrude my privacy. Do you close the envelope of a regular snail-mail letter? If so, do YOU have something to hide??

Point & Click Encryption?

[RubberChainsaw]

This extension seems very cool, and I plan to try it out when I get home. When I first read the summary I thought to myself, "A firefox extension and gmail, how much simpler could it get!" But, unfortunately this is not point & click encryption. It requires an additional external program (GnuPG) to function. Even this small, relatively trivial step is too much for beginning to average computer users. Encrypted email is great and all, but I can only send it to other people with encryption-enabled email clients.

Where is the it-just-works email encrytion for dummies?

Re:Point & Click Encryption?

[Kadin2048]

Where is the it-just-works email encrytion for dummies?

AFAICT, it doesn't exist. At least not outside of corporate environments. There are lots of companies that have their encryption set up so that it's transparent to non-technical employees, but it's a lot of work for the people who actually make it run. Lotus Notes, for instance, will do public-key cryptography, using company-wide keyservers -- although it's a proprietary algorithm, or was last time I checked. Once you have the infrastructure in place, the users don't have to think much about it, besides clicking 'encrypt and sign' on the emails they want secured.

I've also heard that within Apple, they use Apple Mail with S/MIME to great effect ... but if you're just a regular user, getting that feature working is a real PITA. (Though admittedly, most of the trouble is because of the certificate authorities.)

I think the problem with the free encryption tools is that they're still very much a 'hacker's product,' being designed by fairly advanced users, for other advanced users -- or at least, for users who don't have a problem installing extra software in order to communicate securely. This, IMO, is a mistake; in order for an encryption system to be useful, it has to be widely used. And that means getting it into the hands of people who might not even think, in advance, that they want it. There are lots of people who aren't going to go out and download/install encryption software, but if the feature was there, and working, all the time, they'd probably find themselves clicking the 'Encrypt' button quite a bit.

There's no real reason why encryption can't be built in. It's just that it tends to get viewed as a peripheral, rather than core, feature, in everything except some corporate packages. However, I think that if it was incorporated more widely, it would quickly become a core feature; but getting over that 'chicken and egg' hump is hard.

Re:Nerds with something to hide

[toleraen]

I generally close the envelope of snail mail so the mail doesn't fall out.

I use security envelopes to obscure the contents of my mail. You probably would want to use that as an analogy instead.

Re:I wouldn't think google would like this

[CreatureComfort]

So... you are saying that the NSA has the ability and desire to break every ElGamel 2048-bit length encrypted message it captures with Echelon? I've seen too much of government from the inside to think that any agency operates as well as the NSA FUD would have us believe. Especially when you realize it is far easier and cheaper to make your enemies believe you have super powers than it is to actually develop those super powers, completely in-house with no outside knowledge or help.

Re:Nerds with something to hide

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you "always" sign your messages, then you can tell off anyone you want as long as you don't sign it. Brilliant!

Re:The Fascination with Encryption

[canajin56]

Here is why you don't do that: Because why wouldn't a terrorist leave corroborating evidence lying around proving it was all just a test to psych the government out, so they can be let go? While they are interviewing your "third parties" you are being beaten half to death, electrocuted, water boarded, and raped. IF, and its a huge, colossally massive if, they ever EVER believe you that you were just kidding about bombing NY with a dirty bomb, they will testify that you cannot be released since after your brutal torture you probably are now a terrorist even through you weren't before. Plus you can't exactly be let go since the torture techniques are classified information and you might leak them. Just like Jose Padilla. First he HAD a dirty bomb, then he was building one, then he was thinking about it, then he knew somebody who was thinking about it, then nothing...but they have ruled he can NEVER face trial, and can NEVER be released. Their reasoning is their "interrogation techniques" have irreversibly damaged him mentally, so he's too unstable to stand trial. But these "interrogation techniques" are highly classified matters of national security, so he can never ever be allowed to talk to anybody in case he tells them what they did to him (especially not a lawyer). And that would be you. Now remember, he _WAS_ a citizen, and there was no evidence against him. Still tortured and given a life sentence without the possibility of a trial. What fucking chance do you think you have if there IS evidence against you? Well you might have white skin so you just may have some kind of chance.

Re:The Fascination with Encryption

[MyOtherUIDis3digits]

Man, I miss the days when a post like that would have made me laugh and I would have called you a loon...

Re:And for the chat

[cayenne8]

"Well in traditional crypto/signature schemes, having a provable relation between a specific message and specific sender is a desired attribute. While there are certainly situations where you would like to verify the identity of the person to which you are chatting (wife/girlfriend/boss/etc), it appears that is not one of the wanted 'features' of this encryption protocol. Forward and backward secrecy would certainly be something most would consider useful, however."

Well, you want to make sure it IS from the person you think it is, but, that doesn't mean you have to know who the person IS in real life.

It would be cool if these email plugins would help make it easy to register and use the nym servers. This way you could set up an email address on each end. PGP sigs can be used, but, there is plausible denyability as to who really is at each end of the email.

Of course if you're really worried about tracability, then set up a nym account to send out on, but, on return messages...just have it post encrypted to one of many USENET groups. You then really have a disconnect 'cause there's no good way to monitor around the world who gets what messages of USENET.