Reading OpenPGP E-mail

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPGP OpenPGP] is an internet standard for encrypting and decrypting data. There are several implementations of this standard, both commercial and free software, for a variety of platforms and operating systems. One such popular free implementation is the [http://www.gnupg.org GNU Privacy Guard].

OpenPGP implementations can be used to digitally sign, encrypt, and decrypt email messages for heightened security. You can register your own personal OpenPGP keys with Launchpad, and under some situations, Launchpad will send you signed or encrypted email. You would then use OpenPGP support in your mail reader to decrypt these messages or verify a message's digital signature. Of course, you can also use the OpenPGP support in your mail reader to trade encrypted messages with your colleagues, or sign your own messages so that others can have better assurances that the email that appears to come from you actually does comes from you.

The instructions below are not intended to provide you with detailed information on OpenPGP, its various implementations, or its use. These instructions simply provide links that can help you set up your mail reader to be compatible with OpenPGP signed and/or encrypted email.

We need your help to flesh out these instructions!

Linux mail readers

Thunderbird

You probably want [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/71 Enigmail], a Thunderbird add-on. On Ubuntu systems, you should just install the mozilla-thunderbird-enigmail package; I think this will install everything you need to get started with reading GPG signed and/or encrypted email. [BarryWarsaw Date(2007-04-04T16:56:23Z)].

Evolution

Evolution has built-in support for OpenPGP. Look under the Security tab when you edit accounts.

mutt

Check out this page [http://codesorcery.net/old/mutt/mutt-gnupg-howto]. In addition you probably want this .muttrc line as well: set pgp_auto_decode=yes

Claws

Mac OS X mail readers

Mail.app

[http://www.sente.ch/software/GPGMail/English.lproj/GPGMail.html GPGMail] from Sen:te is an excellent plugin for Apple's Mail.app mail reader. It has great support for reading GPG signed and/or encrypted email, assuming you already have GnuPG installed on your Mac (if not, the Sen:te pages can help you with that). The plugin is easy to install, easy to use, and seems very stable. I have only tried it with Mail.app on Mac OS X 10.4. [BarryWarsaw Date(2007-04-04T16:32:05Z)]

Thunderbird

You probably want [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/71 Enigmail], a Thunderbird add-on. Although I have not tried it, you should just be able to install this plugin into your Thunderbird and be good to go. [BarryWarsaw Date(2007-04-04T16:56:23Z)].

Entourage

Windows mail readers

Outlook

Outlook Express

Thunderbird

You probably want [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/71 Enigmail], a Thunderbird add-on. Although I have not tried it, you should just be able to install this plugin into your Thunderbird and be good to go. [BarryWarsaw Date(2007-04-04T16:56:23Z)].

Miscellaneous

Google mail (Gmail)

[http://firegpg.tuxfamily.org/index.php?page=home&lang=en FireGPG] Firefox plugin is perfect for this task. Simply click on the "Download" link to install this in Firefox, accept the install, and then restart Firefox when it has finished. In Gmail, when you select text now and right click it, the bottom of your context menu will contain FireGPG, with options to sign, verify, crypt/decrypt, etc. This works well as far as it can be told, but remember that this extension is in Beta. A small amount of documentation can be found [http://firegpg.tuxfamily.org/doc/doku.php here].

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