Re: Why are mail servers not also key servers?

[Doug Royer <[e-mail]>]

On 04/20/2017 11:35 AM, Viktor Dukhovni wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 07:01:05PM +0200, Jon wrote:
> 
>> This is why I think smtp should be extended. All your mail agents
>> support (E)SMTP and presumably they would all support an extension to
>> smtp. The private keys will need to be stored some how to allow for
>> multiple clients, but a key generated from user input could be used to
>> decrypt a stored copy of the private key.
> 
> A major problems with all E2E email encryption proposals is unrelated
> to key distribution, none of the extant MUAs provide an adequate
> interface for E2E encrypted email.
> 
>        + Encrypted email is not searchable.

Sure it is, by the recipient MUA, else the user could not read their 
email. It would not be searchable by a 3rd party - which is the point of 
encryption.

>        + Encrypted email is difficult to scan for spam and malware

The scan would have to take place in the MUA. Firewall scanners would 
fail, as they do now with S/MIME or encrypted PGP.

>        + Changing the private key can mean loss of access to email
> 	encrypted under the old key.

Only if you throw away old keys. Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do 
this. - So Do not do that :-)

>        + Signatures stop verifying when the signature key expires,
> 	even though they were valid at the the email was received.

Again, do not throw away the old keys. An MUA should not allow a user to 
throw away any key needed for any message still in the store. Yep - complex.

> ....

-- 

Doug Royer - (http://DougRoyer.US  http://goo.gl/yrxJTu )
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