Contract 'EasyGpg' 2016

Scheduled contract time line: Januar 2016 - June 2017 (extended to Sept 2017).

Results (preliminary)

• An RFC-draft and rationale how to initiate an encrypted communication via the email-address. See WKD/WKS overview page. Initially published mid 2016 and refined with stakeholders.

• Improvements to the crypto engine GnuPG to support more trust-levels and the new pubkey discovery methods for clients and email providers have been implemented ('in upstream') and published with GnuPG 2.2 (August 2017) and Gpg4win 3.0.0(rc).

• Implementations of an easier embarking process to be ready for end-to-end crypto and other crypto improvements for Thunderbird/Enigmail (GNU/Linux, Windows) and KMail (GNU/Linux) have been given upstream so they are scheduled to be released with the next stable release (e.g. KDEPIM 17.10).

• Stakeholders like email providers and mail user agent developers were approached to gather feedback and gain support. Of the two privacy leading email providers in Germany, one added early web key directory support in Dez 2016.

Resulting software improvements and designs have been developed within the upstream Free Software initiatives as far as possible, in the open and under a compatible Free Software license.

Goals

• Improve the user experience of end-to-end cryptography based on OpenPGP for email.
• Design a new trust model that allows to automate key creation and cert exchange inspired by TOFU or TUFC concepts. Use the existing relationship between user and email service provider (ESP).
• Convince email service providers to offer a certificate discovery service for their users. Offer a fallback solution for testing the resulting implementations.
• Implement the email client side for Thunderbird and Kontact Mail.
• Improve the usability for Thunderbird and Kontact Mail by adding comfort options for storing encrypted emails.

Principal BSI

The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) contracted Intevation and g10 Code.

The public tender was published in September 2015. The bid was accepted in the last days of December 2015.

Team

The team consist of the German companies Intevation GmbH and g10 code GmbH. As a subcontractor KDAB (Deutschland) GmbH & Co. KG will help with the Kontact Mail and Kleopatra implementation parts.

Contact

Prefered: via the public channels of Gpg4win or GnuPG.

Alternatively send email to Emanuel (69A911FC) or Bernhard (EFF5D42A) from Intevation. Encryption appreciated. ;-)

Development Lab

Documenting work and design processes

• Vision and some user stories (Meeting April 2016)
• Pubkey Distribution Concept (in discussion)
• Components (work in progress)
• User Interface Interaction with GnuPG (work in progress)
• AutomatedEncryption
• Outlook Ui for Automated / Easy Encryption