secure email
pretty good privacy

 

The basics of eMail communication were set when no one really considered the security implications that would arise 20 or 30 years later. Therefore, eMail is unfortunately one of the most insecure forms of communication. Many people communicate with their respective mail servers without using any kind of encryption even at the transport layer. Public-key cryptography Furthermore, for those who keep the eMail on an IMAP server for convenient remote access from multiple locations (your desktop, your mobile phone, your office), there is always the issue that those mails are virtually always are stored unencrypted on the server disks and therefore in principle accessible for anyone with the right mind set to get them—you may have heard from the multiple data breaches in big companies over the last few years, where often a considerable portion of the mail exchange was acquired in the process.

With PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) there exists a freely available and standardized method to encrypt and sign eMails, based on public-key cryptography—this means that the sender needs the public key of the recipient. Common keyservers make published public keys available to anyone looking for them. The integration of PGP into the typical day-to-day eMail flow has become rather convenient with the combination of Thunderbird and the Enigmail plugin.

My PGP public key:

Download PGP key
Download key

Name: Benjamin Jurke
eMail: mail@benjaminjurke.net
Key ID: 0xC6E5F55B

PGP key file contents

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (MingW32)
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=TOXa
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

Copyright information: “Download” image by FastIcon.com; “Public-key cryptography” image modified from InfoSec Hong Kong