technology:email encryption

Darkmail opens: New email encryption standard aims to keep government agencies out | Technology | theguardian.com
▻http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/30/darkmail-encryption-inbox-silent-circle-lavabit

Levison said: "I’m worried about how we’re just a blink technologically away from becoming a totalitarian state, where our government is watching us all the time.

"You have to remember that the email protocols that we’re using today were developed in the 70s when there were only a handful of people on the internet, or back then it was called Darpanet, and everybody trusted everybody else.

“Security was never baked into the protocols, it’s really become an afterthought. And as a result, messages [are] passed over the internet in plaintext. It’s hard to develop a system which is backwards compatible but is secure by default. In fact it’s impossible.”

Dark Mail Alliance : Lavabit, Silent Circle team up to create surveillance-proof email.
►http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/30/dark_mail_alliance_lavabit_silent_circle_team_up_to_create_surveillance.html

Existing forms of email encryption, like PGP, can be used to encrypt the content of an email. But PGP cannot encrypt the “subject” header or metadata like the “to” and “from” fields, and the average user can find it too complicated to use. Dark Mail promises to address both of these issues in the form of an easy-to-use iOS app and an Android app. There will also be desktop versions for Mac and Windows users. People using the technology will still be able to send emails to friends or colleagues using Gmail and Hotmail—but when sending messages to non-Dark Mail users, a warning will be displayed, making it clear that the communication could be intercepted.