[Gpg4win-devel] [Gpg4win-commits] [git] Gpg4win - branch, master, updated. gpg4win-2.1.1-23-g030afe5

[Werner Koch]

On Thu, 11 Jul 2013 10:20, bernhard at intevation.de said:

> From the usabilty view we must have a bigger change of the user to see this.

Bernard, please do a reality check: Virtually nobody is using S/MIME
with Gpg4win.  It just does not make sense given that almost all mail
clients support S/MIME naively.  The German c't magazine ran several
article and FAQs on how to best configure encryption for everyone.  For
example issue 22/2012:

  Autonomes Verschlüsseln
  Mail-Verschlüsselung mit selbst signierten Zertifikaten

  Wer eine zuverlässige Mail-Verschlüsselung für den Privateinsatz
  braucht, muss sich nicht auf SSL-Zertifikate von kommerziellen
  Anbietern verlassen. Wir zeigen, wie man selbst signierte
  S/MIME-Zertifikate auf OS X und Windows 7 mit Bordmitteln erzeugt und
  in gängigen Mail-Clients einsetzt.

[How to create and use a self-signed certificate with standard OS X and
 Windows 7 tools]

Gpg4win was not even mentioned.

> possibility, please do suggest it. But don't just remove it, this lowers the 
> usability of the S/MIME part and throws away the knowledge that took a while 

That entirely wrong.  The whole information is still prominently
available from the menu.

While thinking about we should even consider to make
--disable-crl-checks the default.  They are useless because they don't
solve a real world problem: Average users have no idea on how to report
a compromised certificate so that it will end up in a CRL.  OTOH, the
major point of attack are the Root-CAs where a CRL does not help at all.
S/MIME is not usable unless deployed by experts.  And some experts may
be able to read a HOWTO.


Salam-Shalom,

   Werner



[1] http://www.heise.de/artikel-archiv/ct/2012/22/160_Autonomes-Verschluesseln
    (paywall)
-- 
Die Gedanken sind frei.  Ausnahmen regelt ein Bundesgesetz.