Signing & Encrypting Messages

 

In this section:

About Digital Signatures & Encryption

Getting Other People's Certificates

Configuring Security Settings

Signing Messages

Encrypting Email Messages

Message Security - Compose Window

Message Security - Received Window

 

About Digital Signatures & Encryption

When you compose a mail or newsgroup message, you can choose to attach your digital signature to the message. A digital signature allows recipients of the message to verify that the message really comes from you and hasn't been tampered with since you sent it.

When you compose a mail message, you can also choose to encrypt the message. Encryption makes it nearly impossible for anyone other than the intended recipient to read the message while it is in transit over the Internet.

Encryption is not available for newsgroup messages.

Before you can sign or encrypt a message, you must take these preliminary steps:

  1. Obtain one or more certificates (the digital eqivalents of ID cards). For details, see Getting Your Own Certificate.
  2. Configure the security settings for your email or newsgroup account. For details, see Configuring Your Security Settings.

Once you have completed these steps, follow the directions in these sections to sign and encrypt messages:

The following sections provide a brief overview of how digital signatures and encryption work. For more technical details on this subject, see the online document Introduction to Public-Key Cryptography.

 

How Digital Signatures Work

A digital signature is a special code, unique to each message, created by means of public-key cryptography.

A digital signature is completely different from a handwritten signature, although it can sometimes be used for similar legal purposes, such as signing a contract.

To create a digital signature for an email or newsgroup message that you are sending, you need two things:

 

How Encryption Works

To encrypt an email message, you must have an encryption certificate for each of the message's recipients. The public key in each certificate is used to encrypt the message for that recipient.

If you dont have a certificate for even a single recipient, the message cannot be encrypted.

The recipient's software uses the recipient's private key, which remains on that person's computer, to decrypt the message.

 

Getting Other People's Certificates

Every time you send a digitally signed message, your encryption certificate is automatically included with the message. Therefore, one of the easiest ways to obtain someone else's certificate is for that person to send you a digitally signed message.

When you receive such a message, the person's certificate is automatically stored by the Certificate Manager, which is the part of the browser that keeps track of certificates.

You can also obtain certificates by looking them up in a public directory, such as the "phonebook"directories maintained by many companies.

 

Configuring Security Settings

Text for these sections to come.

 

Signing Messages

 

Encrypting Email Messages

 


Message Security - Compose

This section describes the Message Security window that you can open for any message you are composing. If you're not already viewing Message Security, click the Security icon in the toolbar of the Compose window.

The Message Security window describes how your message will be sent:

The Message Security window also lists the certifiates available for the recipients of your message:

For information more information about obtaining certificates and configuring message security settings, see Signing & Encrypting Messages

To indicate your signing or encryption choices for an individual message, click the arrow beside the Security button in the Compose window, then select the options you want. Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings - Security

 


Message Security - Received Message

This section describes the Message Security window that you can open for any message you have received. If you're not already viewing Message Security for a received message, follow these steps:

  1. In the Mail window, select the message for which you want to view security information.
  2. Open the View menu and choose Message Security Information.

The Message Security window displays the following information:

For information more information about obtaining certificates and configuring message security settings, see Signing & Encrypting Messages.

To indicate your signing or encryption choices for an individual message, click the arrow beside the Security button in the Compose window, then select the options you want. Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings - Security

 


19 March 2002

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