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Information about E Mail Encryption

E-mail encryption refers to encryption, and often authentication, of e-mail messages. E-mail encryption usually relies on public-key cryptography.

E-mail encryption protocols

Popular protocols for e-mail encryption include:

STARTTLS

The STARTTLS SMTP extension is a TLS (SSL) layer on top of the SMTP connection. While it protects traffic from being snooped between two e-mail servers, it is technically not encryption of e-mails because the content of messages is revealed to, and can be tampered with by involved e-mail relays. In other words, the encryption takes place between individual SMTP relays, not between the sender and the recipient. When both relays support STARTTLS, it is used regardless of whether the e-mail contents is encrypted using another protocol.

Encrypted e-mail services

Some web-based email (webmail) services provide e-mail encryption as a feature.

See also

encryption is the process of transforming information (referred to as plaintext) to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key.
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Authentication (from Greek αυθεντικός; real or genuine, from authentes; author) is the act of establishing or confirming something (or someone) as authentic, that is, that claims made by or about the thing are true.
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E-mail (short for electronic mail; often also abbreviated as e-mail, email or simply mail) is a store and forward method of composing, sending, storing, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems.
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Public-key cryptography, also known as asymmetric cryptography, is a form of cryptography in which a user has a pair of cryptographic keys - a public key and a private key. The private key is kept secret, while the public key may be widely distributed.
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computing protocols, see Protocol (computing). For protocols on two-way voice communications, see Voice procedure. For other meanings of the word protocol, see Protocol.
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Pretty Good Privacy is a computer program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication. It was originally created by Philip Zimmermann in 1991.

PGP and other similar products follow the OpenPGP standard (RFC 2440) for encrypting and decrypting data.
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Extended SMTP (ESMTP), sometimes referred to as Enhanced SMTP, is a definition of protocol extensions to the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol standard. The extension format was defined in RFC 1869 in 1995.
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Extended SMTP (ESMTP), sometimes referred to as Enhanced SMTP, is a definition of protocol extensions to the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol standard. The extension format was defined in RFC 1869 in 1995.
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Transport Layer Security (TLS) and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), are cryptographic protocols that provide secure communications on the Internet for such things as web browsing, e-mail, Internet faxing, instant messaging and other data transfers.
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Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the de facto standard for e-mail transmissions across the Internet. Formally SMTP is defined in RFC 821 (STD 10) as amended by RFC 1123 (STD 3) chapter 5. The protocol used today is also known as ESMTP and defined in RFC 2821.
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Web-based email or webmail is a term referring to an e-mail service intended to be primarily accessed via a web browser, as opposed to through an application such as Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, Mozilla's Thunderbird or Apple's Mail.
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This article has been tagged since September 2007.
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Hushmail is a web-based email service founded by Cliff Baltzley after leaving Ultimate Privacy. Hushmail offers PGP-encrypted e-mail, file storage, vanity domain service, and instant messaging (Hush Messenger).
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Ensuring a valid identity on an e-mail has become a vital first step in stopping spam, forgery, fraud, and even more serious crimes. An essential second step would be ensuring the entity has a good reputation.
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The protection of electronic mail from unauthorized access and inspection is known as electronic privacy. In countries with a constitutional guarantee of the secrecy of correspondence, e-mail is equated with letters and thus legally protected from all forms of eavesdropping.
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