How to have email privacy on iOS

So you have spent some time in setting up Open PGP on your Mac. You are happy now you can send secure emails from your desktop or laptop computer. The only trouble is, sometimes you are away from your OS X computer and you receive an email that has been sent to you encrypted. Or maybe you would like to send an encrypted email from your iPad or your iPhone. You’re left wondering whether it is possible and if it is possible, is it going to be annoying to do. In any case, if you have decided it is worthwhile encrypting your emails for your own personal privacy you are going to have to set up something or other. You’ll need to read messages that come in to your iPad or iPhone. The good news is, it’s not too difficult to set up and to use applications with OpenPGP on your iOS devices. Find out more in the Good and Geeky Email Privacy Book.

Another way to deal with encryption on iOS and Mac

It is a good idea to have something set up so you can read incoming emails encrypted with PGP on your iPad and iPhone. It is still going to be necessary even if you have set up encryption certificates that you’ve got from Commodo. The certificate-based security works well for decrypting those encrypted emails coming into your iOS devices. This system doesn’t work so well if you need to send an encrypted email. It also will be true that some people will want to send you PGP encrypted emails and others will prefer to use S/Mime protected emails. So if you are serious about having email privacy on iOS, I suggest you set up both encryption systems.

Easy Encryption for Technophobes

Suggested applications for iOS Pretty Good Privacy

I have tried two applications that work well and I keep both of them available on my iPad and iPhone. I use iPGMail and Canary Mail. It is recommended you use iTunes file sharing if you are sending your secret key. If you have already collected public keys from other people, you can move all these keys in one export and import process.

iPGMail

The application iPGMail has the ability to create a PGP key pair and this is useful if you are just working from your iOS devices. You could export the key pair you create in this application to use in GPG tools. The key you create within the application is just as good as a key you create on your desktop computer in terms of security. You do get a few more options in the desktop application. It is easier to send your key to the public keyserver in GPG Tools OSX Keychain. You also can create your revocation certificate at the same time as creating the key, when using GPG Tools on OS X.

Encrypt with iPGMail

When you are using iPGMail you choose the Compose icon from the menu bar at the bottom of screen. From there you have all the choices you need to create an encrypted email on iOS. You can sign, encrypt, or sign and encrypt. You choose the signing key and the public key of the recipient, add the subject for the email and you have a space to write your message. If you choose to send an attachment you get access to your photos and also to local files connected to the application. If you choose to sign the email you will be asked to provide the password/pass phrase for the key you are going to use. You will of course, have that password available to you in the application 1Password.

Decrypt an encrypted email in iOS

In the encrypted email, select all the PGP message. Open up the PGP application and both of the apps I have tried recognise the encrypted text on the clipboard. Choose the option to decrypt and hey presto you can see your decrypted message. It is as easy as that!

You can get all the juicy details in a book about using encryption. Get Good and Geeky Email Security and Privacy available now on Amazon. It is an easy book to read and to follow the step-by-step guides to set up on both your Mac and also on iOS.

Good and Geeky Book about ENCRYPTION on Amazon.

Learn More about PGP
& Securing Your Emails

This is a practical book with links to videos to show you how to do it. I also will work with you. Send me an encrypted email and I will send you one back,

Got any questions? let me help you become proficient in encryption of your communications