Signing and Encrypting Email Messages

In addition to exchange Market.doc, Michael and Bob also regularly exchange email messages. To secure their email communications, they use the hotkey feature of the software.

Composing An Email Message

Assume you are using Microsoft Outlook. If you use other email clients you will follow the same procedure to secure your email messages. You want to send Bob a secret message asking him to meet you at 9pm today. You prepare your message as shown in the figure below.

Signing & Encrypting The Email Message

Upon completing composing the message, do the following to encrypt the message

1. Make sure the message window has the input focus;
2. Enter hotkey Ctrl + Shift + B, which is the default hotkey for signing & encrypting;

This brings up a dialog box that allows you to choose recipients from a list and a signer. If you want to read the encrypted message select yourself as a recipient as well.

3. Select Blob Evans and Michael Davis from the recipient list;
4. Select Michael Davis from the signer list;
5. Click OK button.

The message in the window is then encrypted with both Bob and Michaels's public key as shown in the following figure.

Warning: If you don't select yourself as one of the recipients, you won't be able to decrypt the message even you compose this original message.

Reading The Signed & Encrypted Email Message

When Bob received the message he

1. Makes sure the message window has input focus;
2. Enters hotkey Ctrl + Shift + R, the default hotkey to view an encrypted message;

A mini-viewer is shown and the decrypted text is displayed in the viewer as shown the following figure.

Finding Information About the Signed & Encrypted Message

Optionally Bob can check to find out who the intended recipients and the signer are, as well as the algorithms used. To do so

1. Makes sure the message window has input focus;
2. Enters hotkey Ctrl + Shift + P, the default hotkey to view the crypto properties of an encoded message;

This brings up the crypto properties dialog box as shown below.

The first tab shows the general information.

The second tab shows the signers and the signature verification results.

The third tab shows the intended recipients.

Tip: When using hotkey you should click anywhere in the window that you want to sign and encrypt or decrypt, etc. once so that the window has the input focus.