Encryption

Secure Communication

Unless you are already using encryption technology, your email communication is not secure, which is to say that it may not be private. Origin Development believes that secure communication should be the standard rather than the exception to it, and that email systems should use encryption by default. Until that is widely available in the market, we are happy to help our clients, and to help our clients teach their customers, how to use encryption to keep their communications private.

Basic Public Key / Private Key Encryption

There are hundreds of websites that go into great detail about how encryption works, so we won’t attempt to explain everything here. Put simply, if you want to send me private information, you must encrypt it using my public key. When encrypted with my public key, only someone with my private key (me) can decrypt it. Reversing this process, when someone wants to send you private information, they just encrypt it with your public key.

Generating a Key - Image source WikiMedia Commons
Key Encryption
Above images courtesy of Wikimedia.

Making It Work

In order to use encryption, the first thing you need is a program that can generate the keys and can also use them to encrypt and decrypt messages and files. We recommend using GnuPG4win for Windows and GPGTools for Mac. Next you will need the public key of anyone you want to send a private message to. Download an ODIT public key here and use it to send us an encrypted message. We will decrypt it and send you a response. For detailed instructions on how to install the software and encrypt text for an email message, or a file to attach to an email message, check the links on this page.

A little disclaimer

The information and links presented are meant to demonstrate the basics of using encryption in your communication. There is a lot more to learn if you are willing to take the time. Using just the tools presented here, you will be protecting your private communication better than the vast majority of internet users. That said, this description is just meant to get you started. If you plan to use encrypted communication regularly, it is vital that you learn to protect your private keys, learn about certificate authorities, and know how to revoke a public key that you previously issued before you make it available.