Post by Sarah HoustonI use Pegasus mail on Windows XP Home edition.
Is there some kind of software for sending encrypted emails to friends,
with strong encryption, but pretty much transparently done ( don't have to
fast and meditate to be able to use it? ) and that doesn't cost much for
the software?
Doesn't the Pegasus e-mail client support x.509 e-mail certificates?
You can get them for free at Thawte (acquired by Verisign but the e-mail
certs from Thawte are still free). You don't encrypt your e-mails. You
decrypt those that you receive. Encryption is by invite: someone sends
you a digitally signed e-mail using the public key from their e-mail
cert. You then encrypt your e-mail using THEIR public key. When they
get your e-mail, they decrypt using THEIR private key which only they
have. For you to *get* encrypted e-mails, you send the other person
your public key by digitally signing your e-mail to them which they used
to decrypt their e-mail which you use your private key to decrypt. The
sender needs the public key from the recipient's e-mail cert. If the
recipient doesn't want to get encrypted e-mails, they just never bother
sending you their public key, so they invite you to encrypt to them.
Been awhile since I trialed Pegasus but I doubt that it doesn't support
encrypted e-mails. http://www.pmail.com/overviews/ovw_winpmail.htm
mentions encryption but it mentions PGP. I've never wasted my time with
PGP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy) but instead just
used the standardized X.509 certs primarily because support has been
built into the e-mail clients that I've used.