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<title>Email Self-Defense - a guide to fighting surveillance with GnuPG encryption</title>
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<h2><em>#1</em> Get the pieces</h2>
<p class="notes">This guide relies on software which is freely licensed; it's completely transparent and anyone can copy it or make their own version. This makes it safer from surveillance than proprietary software (like Windows). To defend your freedom as well as protect yourself from surveillance, we recommend you switch to a free software operating system like GNU/Linux. Learn more about free software at <a href="https://u.fsf.org/ys">fsf.org</a>.</p>
- <p>To get started, you'll need a desktop email program installed on your computer. This guide works with free software versions of the Thunderbird email program, and with Thunderbird itself. Email programs are another way to access the same email accounts you can access in a browser (like Gmail), but provide extra features.</p>
+ <p>To get started, you'll need the IceDove desktop email program installed on your computer. For your system, IceDove may be known by the alternate name "Thunderbird." Email programs are another way to access the same email accounts you can access in a browser (like Gmail), but provide extra features.</p>
<p>If you already have an email program, you can skip to <a href="#step-1b">Step 1.b</a>.</p>
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<h3><em>Step 2.a</em> Make a keypair</h3>
<p>The Enigmail Setup wizard may start automatically. If it doesn't, select Enigmail → Setup Wizard from your email program's menu. You don't need to read the text in the window that pops up unless you'd like to, but it's good to read the text on the later screens of the wizard. Click Next with the default options selected, except in these instances:</p>
<ul>
- <li>On the second screen, titled "Encryption," select "Encrypt all of my messages by default, because privacy is critical to me."</li>
- <li>On the third screen, titled "Signing," select "Don't sign my messages by default."</li>
- <li>On the fourth screen, titled "Key Selection," select "I want to create a new key pair for signing and encryption my email."</li>
+ <li>On the screen titled "Encryption," select "Encrypt all of my messages by default, because privacy is critical to me."</li>
+ <li>On the screen titled "Signing," select "Don't sign my messages by default."</li>
+ <li>On the screen titled "Key Selection," select "I want to create a new key pair for signing and encrypting my email."</li>
<li>On the screen titled "Create Key," pick a strong password! Your password should be at least 12 characters and include at least one lower case and upper case letter and at least one number or punctuation symbol. Don't forget the password, or all this work will be wasted!</li>
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<p class="notes">The program will take a little while to finish the next step, the "Key Creation" screen. While you wait, do something else with your computer, like watching a movie or browsing the Web. The more you use the computer at this point, the faster the key creation will go.</p>
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<h2><em>#3</em> Try it out!</h2>
<p>Now you'll try a test correspondence with a computer program named Edward, which knows how to use encryption. Except where noted, these are the same steps you'd follow when corresponding with a real, live person.</p>
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+ <p>NOTE: Edward is currently having some technical difficulties, so he may take a long time to respond, or not respond at all. We're sorry about this and we're working hard to fix it. Your key will still work even without testing with Edward.</p>
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<h3><em>Step 3.a</em> Send Edward your public key</h3>
<p>This is a special step that you won't have to do when corresponding with real people. In your email program's menu, go to Enigmail → Key Management. You should see your key in the list that pops up. Right click on your key and select Send Public Keys by Email. This will create a new draft message, as if you had just hit the Write button.</p>
-<p>Address the message to edward-en@fsf.org. Put at least one word (whatever you want) in the subject and body of the email. Then hit send.</p>
+<p>Address the message to edward-en@fsf.org. Put at least one word (whatever you want) in the subject and body of the email. Don't send yet.</p>
<p>There should be an icon of a yellow key in the bottom right of the composition window. This means that encryption is on, however, we want this first special message to Edward to be unencrypted. Click the key icon once to turn encryption off. The key should become grey, with a blue dot on it (to alert you that the setting has been changed from the default). Once encryption is off, hit Send.</p>
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<h3><em>Step 3.b</em> Send a test encrypted email</h3>
<p>Write a new email in your email program, addressed to edward-en@fsf.org. Make the subject "Encryption test" or something similar and write something in the body.</p>
- <p>They key in the bottom right of the window should be yellow, meaning encryption is on. This will be your default from now on.</p>
+ <p>The key in the bottom right of the window should be yellow, meaning encryption is on. This will be your default from now on.</p>
<p class="notes">Next to the key, you'll notice an icon of a pencil. Clicking this tells Enigmail to add a special, unique signature to your message, generated using your private key. This is a separate feature from encryption, and you don't have to use it for this guide.</p>
<p>Click Send. Enigmail will pop up a window that says "Recipients not valid, not trusted or not found."</p>
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<h3><em>Step 3.c</em> Receive a response</h3>
<p>When Edward receives your email, he will use his private key to decrypt it, then use your public key (which you sent him in <a href="#step-3a">Step 3.A</a>) to encrypt his reply to you.</p>
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<p class="notes">It may take two or three minutes for Edward to respond. In the meantime, you might want to skip ahead and check out the <a href="#section5">Use it Well</a> section of this guide.</p>
<p>When you receive Edward's email and open it, Enigmail will automatically detect that it is encrypted with your public key, and then it will use your private key to decrypt it.</p>
<p>Notice the bar that Enigmail shows you above the message, with information about the status of Edward's key.</p>
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