We Need To Take Back Our Emails

In light of the Snowden revelations about how government has thrown a very big net over our computing to gather data about us, I've grown interests on tools which can take back our privacy. I focused my efforts at emails. I know that it can be signed and encrypted, yes.

To sign emails, I don't mean that snippet of text (signature) below the message body. Signing the email requires you to generate a key pair- a public key and a private key. This key pair is unique and can be used to identify you in the digital world. I am not going to attempt to explain the mathematics of cryptology here, just this. It might be next to impossible to break it.

This key pair can also protect the integrity of files, emails and its attachments. Your email client can tell you if the message has been altered or corrupted. You will need an email client. You remember those right?

The easiest way to use key pairs is with an email client like Thunderbird, Kmail or Evolution. I use Linux by the way. I am trying this out using both Thunderbird and Evolution. I should tell you that this technology is cross platform. It is available in Windows, Mac OS and Linux. In Linux, the technology, Gnu Privacy Guard, is part of the core component of the operating system. All that is needed is for us to learn the front-ends and how to use our key pair.

Next are use cases...