Hawk Wings » encryption

Encryption tutorial for Mail.app

Tim Gaden — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 11:18:03 +0000

Melvin Rivera has written a nice tutorial for Mail users explaining how to get a digital certificate from Thawte and how to use Mail.app’s digital signature and encryption features.

He outlines the process for creating an account at Thawte and requesting a certificate and then installing it.

Further sections follow on the difference between a digitally signed and an encrypted message, and how to use them.

It’s interesting to compare Melvin’s take on secure email in Mail.app with Matt Haughey’s experience , which wasn’t so positive.

Melvin thinks it works well and is a good tool to have in your email armoury:

Other than the process of going though an external website for obtaining a certificate, Mailâ€™s integration of signed and encrypted messages is seamless. Itâ€™s a great feature that is just hidden until needed. Making the user experience simple and clean. And thereâ€™s nothing like discovering a great new feature on an App youâ€™ve been using for a long time now.

Joar Winfor has also produced a more detailed walkthrough for secure email in Mail.app, but more detail is not always good for everyone.thawte, certificate, X.509, digital signatures, encryption, secure email, security, mail.app, apple mailSimilar Posts:

A list of scandalous problems with Mail.app

Tim Gaden — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 00:20:08 +0000

The owner of rtfa.net has posted a list of the things that are annoying, broken or just plain scandalous about Mail.app.

He is an unhappy Apple Mail user: “Well, if Thunderbird integrated with spotlight and OSX address book, itâ€™d be a no-brainer. However, Iâ€™m entrenched.”

And life in the trenches with Mail.app is not good.

Three problems score the highest scandal rating — incorrect treatment of IMAP’s “seen flag”, the “lost message” problem and the â€œinvalid pointerâ€ problem.mail.app apple mail, bugs, problems, IMAP, flags, attachments, SSL, encryption, lost messagesSimilar Posts:

Encryption for Gmail via Greasemonkey

Tim Gaden — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 12:58:12 +0000

Langenhoven offers a Greasemonkey script for Firefox that will encrypt Gmail messages.

It achieves this by using RSA type encryption in Javascript.

The site also offers a utility for producing the public and private keys needed for encryption.

I haven’t tested this but the results look like the real thing:

Read the Known Issues section to discover that it works best in Firefox 1.5 or greater and that some of the buttons are troublesome.gmail, encryption, greasemonkey, firefox, public public, private keys, email, securitySimilar Posts:

The story of PGP and GPG

Tim Gaden — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 13:20:37 +0000

Webmonkey has published the introductory chapter to PGP & GPG: Email for the Practical Paranoid by Michael W. Lucas.

It covers Phil Zimmermann’s first steps with PGP, the lawsuits with the US Government, the launch of OpenPGP, GnuPG, legal aspects of encryption and more.

A brief quotation:

The ideas behind PGP had been known and understood by computer scientists and mathematicians for years, so the underlying concepts weren’t truly innovative. Zimmermann’s real innovation was in making these tools usable by anyone with a home computer. Even early versions of PGP gave people with standard DOS-based home computers access to military-grade encryption.

UPDATE: Mirko posts a link in the comments to an audio interview with Jon Callas , CTO at PGP Corporation, who also explains the history of PGP. Thanks.pgp, gpg, encryption, privacy, Zimmermann, OpenPGP, GnuPG, history

Similar Posts:

Greasemonkey up your Gmail

Tim Gaden — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 13:35:17 +0000

I ran across two things for Gmail users today.

Adam Pash at Lifehacker has posted a tutorial of tips and tricks for getting the most out of Gmail. It even has video clips!

Among other things, he talks about some scripts for the Firefox extension Greasemonkey which add very useful bells and whistles to Gmail’s web interface.

Another Greasemonkey script promises to bring basic encryption to Gmail. It first encrypts the email into AES and then uses the RSA algorithm to encrypt the message again.gmail, tips, tricks, greasemonkey, scripts, firefox, encryption, email Similar Posts:

ChibiNinja 1.1 Easy encrypted email, images, files

Tim Gaden — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 13:47:47 +0000

ChibiNinja is a utility that creates a cross-platform encrypted multi-language email message with an inserted image. You can send and receive them using from Apple Mail (or Outlook Express on Windows) without complicated encryption mail settings.

An updated version, released today, adds support for encrypted files and the option to request a read receipt. The developer has created a detailed explanation of the app’s new features.

Once donation-ware, ChibiNinja Mail is now shareware (USD 18), although the developer has now released a freeware version that will decrypt and encrypt a message and an image but not files.

You can get them both from the developer’s web site. encryption, email, images, files, read receipt, chibininja, cross-platform, simple, mail.app, apple mail, decrypt Similar Posts:

GPGMail 1.1.2

Tim Gaden — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 23:18:58 +0000

Hot on the heels of Matt Haughey’s fine post about the difficulties of using encryption in Mail.app, comes an update to GPGMail.

This plugin is a front end for gpg and allows you to send and receive encrypted messages. It extends Mail.app’s in-built encryption features in several useful ways.

You can read about the features it offers and its limitation on the GPGMail site.

The new version fixes a compatibility problem with MailTags, needs GPG 1.4 or better, works better in Panther, has a Dutch localisation, works better with AppleScript-generated windows and solves a number of other bugs. (Full changelog ).

The developer warns, “GPGMail is a complete hack, relying on Mail’s private internal API. Use it at your own risks!” But don’t let that put you off.

Get it from the GPGMail web site. encryption, PGP, GPG, plugin, mail.app, apple mail, mailtags, applescript, certificatesSimilar Posts:

The frustrations of encrypted mail in Mail.app

Tim Gaden — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 13:38:55 +0000

Matt Haughey (his wikipedia entry kewl!) has written a great piece on the frustrations of trying to set up and use encryption in Mail.app.

He suggests that,

Encryption seems to lie somewhere between privacy, security, and a mountain of engineering acronyms and standards. Unfortunately for regular people, most of these systems are overbuilt and the process is so painful that I would argue it barely even functions.

He describes his experience of following Joar Winfor’s excellent tutorial on setting up encryption in Apple Mail, drawing attention to the frustrations of the whole process.

He also makes a few suggestions on how some usability could be introduced. A great read.encryption, mail.app, Apple Mail, usability, user friendly, certificates, Thawte, just too bloody difficultSimilar Posts:

Weekly Update

Tim Gaden — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 22:38:06 +0000

The Hawk Wings’ Plugin and Addon List gets five new entries this week:

Address Book Reports (smarter printing of Address Book info) was added to the Address Book Section.

Whereabouts (sharing Address Book contacts over the Internet) was added to the Address Book Section as well.

Chibi Ninja (cross-platform encryption for emails in Apple Mail) was added to the Added Functionality Section.

An AppleScript that will automatically reply to requests for read receipts was also listed in the Added Functionality Section.

iVoiceMail (voice recordings in Mail.app messages) finds a home in the Added Functionality Section as well.

That makes 108 plugins, addons, helpful apps and AppleScripts to make your Mail.app experience quicker, smarter, broader and more enjoyable.

This week Hawk Wings also got Recent Comments in the sidebar so that you can more easily benefit from the experience of others with these addons. It got some advertising.

Hawk Wings also passed the million mark this week. It has now served 1,098,154 pages. w00t! ;-)Similar Posts:

Chibi Ninja: Cross-platform encrypted messages

Tim Gaden — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 13:53:14 +0000

Ever wanted to send an encrypted message in an email but haven’t wanted the trouble or difficulty of obtaining a digital certificate?

Chibi Ninja, a new app released yesterday, might be for you. It allows you send an encrypted message (and image if you want) through Apple Mail which the recipient can decode using the same password you encrypted it with.

When you launch the app you are presented with its decryption window:

This offers you the choice of one of four encryption standards or ciphers — blowfish 128 bits, cast 128 bits, desx, 192 bits or rc5, 128 bits — for the message and a box to enter your chosen password.

Clicking the Chibi Ninja Mail button opens a message editor in which you compose the message. It allows you to add one image to the message, and to compose mixed messages in English and one other language (currently it supports Bulgarian, Chinese, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Thai, Turkish, and Ukrainian).

You can also enter a comment to accompany the message that will not be encrypted and auto-generate a password for the message. You will need to send the password that you choose to the recipient. The developer suggests by phone or by hand.

When finished, clicking the editor’s “Create Mail” button launches the encrypted message in a Mail.app email:

Send it and then the recipient can copy the encrypted part to their clipboard, launch Chibi Ninja, enter the password that you sent them and decrypt the message.

Chibi Ninja is cross-platform, which means that this process will work for messasges received on any kind of computer.

Chibi Ninja is freeware (donations not refused) and is available from the developer’s web site.Similar Posts: