Enigmail is a

data encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decip ...

and decryption

extension Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate * E ...

for

Mozilla Thunderbird Mozilla Thunderbird is a free and open-source cross-platform email client, personal information manager, news client, RSS and chat client developed by the Mozilla Foundation and operated by subsidiary MZLA Technologies Corporation. The project s ...

and the

Postbox A post box (British English; also written postbox; also known as pillar box), also known as a collection box, mailbox, letter box or drop box (American English) is a physical box into which members of the public can deposit outgoing mail inten ...

that provides

OpenPGP Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is used for signing, encrypting, and decrypting texts, e-mails, files, directories, and whole disk partitio ...

public key Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic alg ...

e-mail encryption and signing. Enigmail works under

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

, and

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s. Enigmail can operate with other mail clients compatible with PGP/MIME and inline PGP such as:

Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as Calen ...

with

Gpg4win Gpg4win is an email and file encryption package for most versions of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Outlook, which utilises the GnuPG framework for symmetric and public-key cryptography, such as data encryption, digital signatures, hash calc ...

package installed,

Gnome Evolution GNOME Evolution (formerly Novell Evolution and Ximian Evolution, prior to Novell's 2003 acquisition of Ximian) is the official personal information manager for GNOME. It has been an official part of GNOME since Evolution 2.0 was included with th ...

KMail Kontact is a personal information manager and groupware software suite developed by KDE. It supports calendars, contacts, notes, to-do lists, news, and email. It offers a number of inter-changeable graphical UIs (KMail, KAddressBook, Akregator, ...

Claws Mail Claws Mail is a free and open-source, C/GTK-based e-mail client, which is both lightweight and highly configurable. Claws Mail runs on both Windows and Unix-like systems such as Linux, BSD, and Solaris. It stores mail in the MH mailbox format. P ...

Gnus Gnus (), or Gnus Network User Services, is a message reader which is part of GNU Emacs. It supports reading and composing both e-mail and news and can also act as an RSS reader, web processor, and directory browser for both local and remote files ...

, Mutt. Its

cryptographic Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adve ...

functionality is handled by

GNU Privacy Guard GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG or GPG) is a free-software replacement for Symantec's PGP cryptographic software suite. The software is compliant with RFC 4880, the IETF standards-track specification of OpenPGP. Modern versions of PGP are interoperable ...

. In their default configuration, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey provide e-mail encryption and signing using

S/MIME S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) is a standard for public key encryption and signing of MIME data. S/MIME is on an IETF standards track and defined in a number of documents, most importantly . It was originally developed by R ...

, which relies on

X.509 In cryptography, X.509 is an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standard defining the format of public key certificates. X.509 certificates are used in many Internet protocols, including TLS/SSL, which is the basis for HTTPS, the secu ...

keys provided by a centralised

certificate authority In cryptography, a certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity that stores, signs, and issues digital certificates. A digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate. This ...

. Enigmail adds an alternative mechanism where cooperating users can instead use keys provided by a

web of trust In cryptography, a web of trust is a concept used in PGP, GnuPG, and other OpenPGP-compatible systems to establish the authenticity of the binding between a public key and its owner. Its decentralized trust model is an alternative to the centr ...

, which relies on multiple users to endorse the authenticity of the sender's and recipient's credentials. In principle this enhances security, since it does not rely on a centralised entity which might be compromised by security failures or engage in malpractice due to commercial interests or pressure from the jurisdiction in which it resides. Enigmail was first released in 2001 by Ramalingam Saravanan, and since 2003 maintained by Patrick Brunschwig. Both Enigmail and GNU Privacy Guard are

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

. Enigmail with Thunderbird is now the most popular PGP setup. Enigmail has announced its support for the new "

pretty Easy privacy pretty Easy privacy (p≡p or pEp) is a pluggable data encryption and verification system, which provides automatic cryptographic key management through a set of libraries (providing p≡p adapters for application developers' used programming ...

" (p≡p) encryption scheme in a joint Thunderbird extension to be released in December 2015. As of June 2016 the FAQ note it will be available in Q3 2016. Enigmail also supports Autocrypt exchange of cryptographic keys since version 2.0. In October 2019, the developers of Thunderbird announced built-in support for encryption and signing based on OpenPGP Thunderbird 78 to replace the Enigmail add-on. The background is a change in the code base of Thunderbird, removing support for legacy add-ons. Since this would require a rewrite from scratch for Enigmail, Patrick Brunschwig instead supports the Thunderbird team in a native implementation in Thunderbird. Enigmail will be maintained for Thunderbird 68 until 6 months after the release of Thunderbird 78. The support of Enigmail for

will be unaffected.

References

External links

* Cryptographic software Thunderbird WebExtensions OpenPGP Free email software MacOS security software Windows security software Unix security software MacOS Internet software Windows Internet software Unix Internet software Cross-platform free software {{Crypto-stub

See also

References

External links