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Comment by gfodor | Hacker News Reader

If you really want this to work you should target the webmail use case for the big three webmail providers. Nobody wants to use a standalone client on a PC, if that's what you are suggesting. Next up is a mobile client for Android and iOS that works identically to the existing mail client on those platform so there is no learning curve.

In other words, this will be a long slog where most of the work is product-oriented and feature Xerox'ing, and not whiz-bang cool encryption oriented. Good luck :)

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Im unsure of what you are describing. Are you stating that hotmail should be able to display your decrypted emails? That would imply that they themselves would be able to read it and therefore remove any benefit. Any website you would build would have the same problem unless you resort to js crypto in which the js can be changed on you in a second (when the government forces your company to do so) and send the private key to the nsa. How exactly are you envisioning a solution?

There is no need for that decryption to occur server-side.

Where will the keys be stored?

How will they be distributed and replaced?

Who will generate them?

How will they get on my phone?

What happens when my phone is stolen?

How will they get to the people who want to communicate with me?

Ie, this is a hard design problem.

Hacking out a local client usable by unix nerds punts on these problems, more or less. Solve these problems in a way that fits into the workflow of present day average e-mail users (ie, my mom) and you will have something.

Nobody wants to use a standalone client on a PC, if that's what you are suggesting.

I do. Am I the only one who finds web-based email clients insufferably slow?

And next week, after someone demos an easy-to-use encrypted system, the same naysayers will be all about how it helps drug dealers and other baddies.

> Nobody wants to use a standalone client on a PC

What if your standalone client is a website running on your local box with an interface similar to gmail?

> In other words, this will be a long slog where most of the work is product-oriented and feature Xerox'ing, and not whiz-bang cool encryption oriented.

Yes, you're right. The crypto itself isn't that complicated.

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