Email Self-Defense

We fight for computer users' rights, and promote the development of free (as in freedom) software. Resisting bulk surveillance is very important to us.

We want to translate this guide into more languages, and make a version for encryption on mobile devices. Please donate, and help people around the world take the first step towards protecting their privacy with free software.

Understanding and setting up email encryption sounds like a daunting task to many people. That's why helping your friends with GnuPG plays such an important role in helping spread encryption. Even if only one person shows up, that's still one more person using encryption who wasn't before. You have the power to help your friends keep their digital love letters private, and teach them about the importance of free software. If you use GnuPG to send and receive encrypted email, you're a perfect candidate for leading a workshop!

#1 Get your friends or community interested

If you hear friends grumbling about their lack of privacy, ask them if they're interested in attending a workshop on Email Self-Defense. If your friends don't grumble about privacy, they may need some convincing. You might even hear the classic "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" argument against using encryption.

Here are some arguments you can use to help explain why it's worth it to learn GnuPG. Feel free to mix and match whichever you think will make sense to your community:

Step 1.a Strength in numbers

Each person who chooses to resist mass surveillance with encryption makes it easier for others to resist as well. People normalizing the use of strong cryptography has multiple powerful effects: It means those that truly need it, like potential whistle-blowers and activists, are more likely to learn about it. More people using it for more things also makes it harder for surveillance systems to single out those that can't afford to be found, and shows solidarity with those people.

#1 Plan The Workshop

When you hear friends bemoaning their lack of digital privacy, ask them if they're interested in attending a workshop to on email self-defense. Once you've got a handful of people interested, pick a date and start planning out the event. Tell participants to bring their computer, their ID (for signing each other's key) and a flash drive.

The success of each workshop requires understanding and catering to the unique background and needs of each group of participants. Workshops should stay small, so that participants receive more individualized instruction. If more than a handful of people want to participate, keep the participant:facilitator ratio low by recruiting more facilitators, or by facilitating multiple workshops. Ideally, facilitators should be known and trusted members of the participants' community. Small workshops among friends work great!

Many activists, journalists, whistleblowers, businessfolk, academics, and dissidents use the OpenPGP standard, so participants might unknowingly know of a few people who use it already. If possible, make a list of people and organizations that use OpenPGP which participants will likely recognize by searching for "BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK" + keyword.

Step 1.a Space and Preparation

Make sure the location you select has an easily accessible internet connection, and make backup plans in case the connection stops working on the day of the workshop. Try and get all the participants to set up an Enigmail-compatible email client before the event. Direct them to their organizations IT department or help page if they run into errors. Estimate that the workshop to take at a minimum 30 minutes plus about five to 10 minutes for each participant. Plan extra time for glitches and questions.

#2 Follow The Guide

Have the participants work through the Email Self-Defense guide a step at a time on their own computers. Make sure all participants complete each step before the group moves on to the next step. Talk about each step, but be sure not to overload the participants with minutia. Pitch the bulk of your instruction to the least tech-savvy participants. Consider holding a secondary workshop afterwards for the outliers in either direction.

Step 2.a Public and Private Keys key

Make sure all the participants have a conceptual understanding of the relationship between public and private keys in a keypair. It's normal for people to not understand public-key cryptography on the first try. Use analogies to help explain the concept.

Step 2.b Diceware and Passphrases

Sufficiently strong passphrases can't easily be brute forced, and thus protect the private key even if it falls into the wrong hands. Recommend participants use the diceware method , and have dice and the wordlist available for them to use. Participants who choose to use diceware should keep their passphrase with them at all at all times until they memorize it. Stress the importance of creating and backing up revocation certificates, especially to participants who write down their diceware passphrases.

Disclaimer

Diceware and Licensing: Something here about diceware's relationship with free software, or something.

#3 Sign Keys

Emphasize the distinction between trusting a person subjectively, and seeing whose keys they've signed objectively. Without a proper understanding of trust, the beautiful transative trust properties of the web of trust are lost. Since trust is an internal and subjective thing, it's unnecessary for participants to share how much they trust another participant with anyone else.

Have the participants download each other's keys, read out their own fingerprints, and present their IDs to each other. Help participants navigate the interface to sign each other's keys, and encourage participants to assign each other trust levels if they already know each other.

Step 4.a Sign a key

In your email program's menu, go to Enigmail → Key Management.

Right click on Edward's public key and select Sign Key from the context menu.

In the window that pops up, select "I will not answer" and click ok.

Now you should be back at the Key Management menu. Select Keyserver → Upload Public Keys and hit ok.

You've just effectively said "I trust that Edward's public key actually belongs to Edward." This doesn't mean much because Edward isn't a real person, but it's good practice.

Important: check people's identification before signing their keys

Before signing a real person's key, always make sure it actually belongs to them, and that they are who they say they are. Ask them to show you their ID (unless you trust them very highly) and their public key fingerprint -- not just the shorter public key ID, which could refer to another key as well. In Enigmail, answer honestly in the window that pops up and asks "How carefully have you verified that the key you are about to sign actually belongs to the person(s) named above?".

#4 Explain the pitfalls

Remind participants that encryption works only where it's explicitly used; they won't be able to send an encrypted email to someone who hasn't set up encrption already. Also remind them to make sure encryption is selected before hitting send. Explain metadata to the participants, and advise them to use bland-sounding subject lines.

Advocate for free software, for without it, we can't meaningfully resist invasions of our digital privacy and autonomy. Explain the dangers of running a proprietary system, and why GnuPG can't begin to mitigate them.