![]() On the other hand, OpenPGP wraps the text and any binary attachments in “ASCII Armor,” an encoding layer. On the recipient’s end, software decodes the ASCII into text or binary files. Your email software transmits nearly everything as ASCII. S/MIME utilizes a standard way of putting arbitrary data into your email, with a definition of what type of information is there. Key Differences Between S/MIME and OpenPGPįrom a technical standpoint, S/MIME and OpenPGP function pretty differently. Then, the software encrypts the message using your recipient’s public key.It’s signing the email with your private key. ![]() Once you receive a digitally signed email, your mail software saves the sender’s public key so you can later send encrypted messages to that person.Īs your email software digitally signs and encrypts a message, it’s doing two things: When you send a digitally signed email to someone, you’re signing the email with your private key and sending that person the public portion of your keypair. They rely on a pair of keys, one public and one private. How Secure Email Worksīoth methods use Public Key Cryptography to digitally sign, encrypt, and then decrypt your email. You probably know of this one in the form of OpenPGP. Another is PGP, which stands for Pretty Good Privacy. One of those is Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, or S/MIME, which is what Apple Mail uses. Groups came up with several standards to accomplish this. Basically, we needed to be able to digitally sign, encrypt, and then decrypt our emails. That quickly changed, and we needed to find ways to make our email communications more secure. Internet developers first standardized the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, or SMTP, in 1982, when there was little concern for security. (Image Credit: Pete Linforth) An Abbreviated History of Secure Email There are several ways to secure email, so let’s look at how they differ. What’s better to secure email, Apple’s Mail app or a solution that uses OpenPGP, such as GPG Suite? Let’s take a look. I showed you recently how you can set up email encryption in Apple’s native Mail app, and that raises an interesting question. When you want to send secure email, you have plenty of choices.
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