Encrypted Email

Mail in OSX can supprt encrypted mail. You have to get a valid certificate first. It is a complex process and you must have a browser that can handle certificates such as Mozilla. When you get a certificate you have to export it from Mozilla and import it into your keychain. Mail recipients must also have a valid certificate.

enigmail

Kate-F said:

Could anyone help me with the basics of encrypted email for mac?

-Are there any good programs out there?
-Are there any programs that were included in my software? (I'm running jaguar on an ibook.)

I looked up some common programs like hushmail and they were not made for a mac. A simple internet search didn't yield any more promising results.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I use 'enigmail' in Mozilla. It's their implementation of GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) which is an open-source version of PGP.

What you will need:

Basics: (you can find them on versiontracker.com)
GnuPG1.2.4 (the 'engine' of mail encryption)
GPGKeys-0.6.1 (to manage your encryption keys)
GPGPreferences-1.2 (an OS X utility to manage prefs, if you need it)

For Panther's Mail.app: (also on versiontracker.com)
GPGMail-1.0.1-for-10.3

or, for Mozilla: (use Mozilla to go to http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ and install these, quit/relaunch Mozilla afterwards)
enigmail (current version)
enigmime (current version)

It works great.

BACK UP YOUR KEYS!!!! Back up the entire .gnupg directory in your home directory to CD periodically, so that you don't loose your private keys. You *will* regret not doing so, as you cannot retrieve them!

you could just use Mail.
Use Mozilla (Safari and IE suck for this unfortunately) to get a certificate (ie from thawte.com) and export it. then import to your keychain, and use it in Mail.
It takes a little time, but its not hard.

follow this on macdevcenter to enable encrypted mail. Think it requires os x 10.3 though. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/01/20/mail.html . Its really easy to follow, but I've only tested it to add a digital signature as I don't know anyone with a public key. It didn't seem to accept the PGP key of someone I know, so it must have to be a real key on a digital certificate.

I hear PGP is rather good. Though I have no personal experience, I honestly think it's not worth the effort.

PGP is free, here is the URL: http://www.pgpi.org/

Another Encrypted email question

I have spent a lot of time trying to set up encrypted email for my mac. I created a signiture with Thawte and followed part of the instructions outlined in macoshints.com. However, I then discovered that my email isn't really encrypted unless the recipient of my email is also encrypted. If they aren't, as I understand it, the email is simply "signed" (which I'm not clear if it's better than nothing).

I found 2 sites that encrypt email whether or not the recipient has encryption. They are zixmail and PGP. However, BOTH of them don't have this feature and download available to mac!!!

SO I have to settle with something called zixmessage center, which is similar to a whole other email address, where I login to zixmessage center to send encrypted email. It's a pain but the best I can find.

DOes anyone know of encrypted email that doesn't require the recipient to be encrypted (keyless) but works for mac users?

Thanks,
Abba