//Gpg4~KDE// was a product name to label a group of Free Software components
that allowed end-to-end cryptography of emails and files on GNU/Linux systems.
The label was in active use roughly between 2009 and 2020.

The main components were:
 * Gnu~PG (Crypto engine)
 * Kleopatra (GUI expert interface and widgets)
 * KMail (Email)
 * Dolphin (Filemanager) integration

Since then you can use either
 * packages coming from your (trusted) GNU/Linux distribution
 * for official government restricted data: check the offerings of https://gnupg.com labeled //Gnu~PG VS-Desktop//.
 * see the ~App~Image with Kleopatra and GnuPG equivalent to the latest Gpg4win release from https://gnupg.org/download 

=== History 

==== Projects Ägypten1+2+

Supported by several contracts since 2002, the German
government, 
via its Federal Agency of IT Security (BSI) 
improved Gnu~PG to support what is now called cryptographic message syntax
for use with S/M~IME. All improvements were done as part of the upstream
Free Software initiatives like KDE, Gnu~PG and mutt as much as possible.

* [[https://www.gnupg.org/aegypten2/index.html|Ägypten2 Contract]] for example

==== Full groupware client with crypto email
2003 a Free Software groupware was build for the BSI, which
used KDE's Kontact as its desktop client, including end-to-end cryptography.

For the some history of the //Kolab Client// see
* https://web.archive.org/web/20090105221351/http://kolab.org/

==== Label Gpg4KDE
Established around 2009-2010 installation packages were made available
for Debian GNU/Linux Lenny mainly for:
 * GnuPG
 * Kontact enterprise35 (including KMail1) using the KDE~3 generation technology. 
   (Still maintained to some extend as part of the
   [[https://trinitydesktop.org/|Trinity Desktop Environment]] (as of Dez 2022)).
 * Kleopatra (the GUI frontend component also based on KDE~3 tech)

Thereby offering versions not yet available in Lenny,
but necessary to gain fully uptodate Open~PGP/MIM~E and S/MIM~E support.
 
A common label was deemed useful at the time for describing a certain set and version
numbers of software components that could be talked about with organisations, customers and that could be checked together.

==== Used for the initial certification
In 2019 a combination of a similar set of components 
(GnuPG, KMail2, Kleopatra, Dolphin-Plugin)
was certified by the German "Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik" (BSI) to allow for handling EU RES~TRI~CTED (VS-NfD) data.
Demonstrating that it is possible to officially handle government //restricted// data
with Free Software components on GNU/Linux systems.



==== Old webpage (via archive.org)

https://web.archive.org/web/20181230055114/http://gpg4kde.de/index.html