Encrypted email is not a new phenomena anymore. There are some email clients out there which offer this service. But end-to-end encryption of an email, well, that’s a different ball game. In normal encryption, the receiver, sender & the email client are able to see the contents of the email. In the end-to-end method, the email is locked for visual only for the sender & receiver. This is based on a system called Pretty Good Privacy (PGP).
Both, Google & Yahoo have been working on such an end-to-end encryption facility for email. On Sunday, at the SXSW, Yahoo talked of its progress on this front. Expectations are the encryption plugin could come in by the year-end, but the entire back-end process is complicated.
Yet, a few days prior to Yahoo’s announcement came the news that Deutsche Telekom & United Internet, with the backing of the German government, will be rolling out browser plug-ins for Chrome & Firefox that may make PGP easy to use. The plug-ins were developed with the open source Mailvelope OpenPGP project. Under it, the encryption keys will be stored on customer’s devices, & only the email sender & the recipient will be able to read a message’s content.
The plug-ins are aimed at making strong the De-Mail system, a German e-government service that was launched in 2011. There have been few customers for it so far. The De-Mail service is used for exchanging legal documents between citizens, businesses, & government organizations.
Now, its makers hope that the addition of the PGP support would help provide a user-friendly way of increasing De-Mail’s security, thus bringing in more traffic. So the question that is begging for an answer is – has De-Mail beaten Google & Yahoo in developing true end-to-end email encryption browser plugins?
Yahoo shows off password-free logins and new encrypted email technology – The Verge
http://news.google.com Mar 15, 2015
That’s why Yahoo is taking a new approach, called “on demand” passwords. Like two-step authentication, you’ll be sent a unique time-sensitive code through an app or …
Yahoo’s plan to get Mail users to encrypt their e-mail: Make it simple – Washington Post (blog)
http://news.google.com Mar 15, 2015
Yahoo’s plan to get Mail users to encrypt their e-mail: Make it simpleWashington Post (blog)In August, Yahoo information security chief Alex Stamos announced that the company would release its own version of the plug-in for all …
Email security hits the gold standard — but not via Google or Yahoo – InfoWorld
http://news.google.com Mar 13, 2015
Have German Web mail providers beaten Google and Yahoo to the punch when it comes to protecting emails with end-to-end encryption based on the PGP (Pretty Good Priv …
Yahoo eyes ‘end-to-end’ email encryption by end of year – dunyanews.tv (press release) (blog)
http://news.google.com Mar 15, 2015
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Yahoo said Sunday it plans to introduce “end to end encryption” for email this year to boost privacy prote …
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