Encrypted email for the less tech savvy

euser1984

I know someone that wants to send emails back and forth between friends but was wondering if they can be read by their isp etc.

Is it possible for people to eavesdrop like this and if so, what would be involved in setting up pgp or something? Bear in mind, I do not want to scare this person by saying they need to install this etc. etc. because they just won't know how to do it....

Thanks.

srsly78

Just use gmail, the isp won't be able to read the mails. Google however will! Also the "authorities" can send Google a warrant to read your mail.

Note, ISP means internet service provider - which could mean UPC or vodafone or whoever. In the above scenario google are just the email provider.

There are lots of "secure email" providers, but many have been compromised by the NSA etc. The only way to be 100% sure is to set up your own infrastructure.

Yes you can also use PGP/other crypto software to encrypt the body of your mail, and then send it as normal - but this is difficult to setup for "normal people". In any case, "normal people" probably already have lots of viruses etc on their computer - so encrypting mail is probably wasted effort.

euser1984

srsly78 wrote: »

Just use gmail, the isp won't be able to read the mails. Google however will! Also the "authorities" can send Google a warrant to read your mail.

Note, ISP means internet service provider - which could mean UPC or vodafone or whoever. In the above scenario google are just the email provider.

There are lots of "secure email" providers, but many have been compromised by the NSA etc. The only way to be 100% sure is to set up your own infrastructure.

Yes you can also use PGP/other crypto software to encrypt the body of your mail, and then send it as normal - but this is difficult to setup for "normal people". In any case, "normal people" probably already have lots of viruses etc on their computer - so encrypting mail is probably wasted effort.

What about sharing photos online like sending them via a secure link to the other person - through email of course....but self destructing after initial download.

Thanks.

srsly78

Self destructing messages only exist in fictional spy movies. There are various services around offering this kind of thing (snapchat?), but you are always reliant on an untrusted 3rd party. If these 3rd parties operated in the usa they would have to allow the NSA access, and so on. You only have their word that they delete stuff.

As above, you would have to set up the infrastructure yourself. There may exist various opensource software packages that make this cheaper, but setting it up and maintaining would not be free.

Secure solutions for this kind of thing exist for business, where there are data protection and privacy requirements. Costs a lot of money tho. This is one of the reasons that some companies refuse to use gmail or googledocs, or other cloud services. Instead they run their own infrastructure at considerable expense.

moc moc a moc

There are plugins available for popular email applications and browsers that provide easy PGP encryption.

srsly78

Depends what you mean by easy! Normal people hate generating keys and so on.

moc moc a moc

srsly78 wrote: »

Depends what you mean by easy! Normal people hate generating keys and so on.

You mean clicking the button that says 'generate keys'?

bonzodog2

Not the most elegant or ultra secure option, but an alternative: attach a password-protected zip/rar archive

Khannie

Mailvelope plugin for chrome is about the easiest. I've tested it on a bunch of non techies and it worked for everyone.

Alternative is a password protected archive as suggested.