Zeyple

Why would I need this?

If you're a system administrator in charge of a mail server, then you must know that a tremendous amount of sensitive information transits by email, from passwords to various log files.

But I have nothing to hide.

This idea is fundamentally flawed. Sure, most of us usually send pretty innocent emails to our peers. However, that one time when you'll need to send sensitive information, say your bank account details to your friend for example, you may feel like encrypting your email. The problem with that is that you're making it extremely obvious that you are sending sensitive information for a third-party listening to your communications.

By encrypting every email by default, you can easily side step the issue. Brute-forcing encrypted messages in order to decrypt their contents can certainly be done for a few targeted messages but it is a far more complex task to do it with all of them.

This is too complicated.

Once deployed on a server, Zeyple requires little to no maintenance. However, the installation process is a bit rough around the edges at the moment. We're planning to make it smoother by providing a .deb package at some point. You can also use this install script if that helps.

Is this completely safe?

Unfortunately no. This is due to the way emails work. Email headers must be in plain text since they are used to route an email to its recipient through a series of relays. These headers also include information such as the subject, the date it's been sent (including your computer's timezone), the email application used and so forth. The Dark Mail Alliance is working on this issue if you're interested to help.

Despite this, the email body can be encrypted and this is exactly what Zeyple does. But as always with electronic security, it is virtually impossible to be 100% safe. That is, security is a pile of layers — the more, the better.