All I can say is OMG yes. I've been meaning to write the exact same blog post. How is it we're at 2019 and email clients don't demand some kind of signature? How is it that you can spoof email... simply by entering the fields however you want to? It's insane.
I agree that the key exchange is difficult, but seriously I'll even take a CA if it means that I can reasonably tell that email that appears to come from my bank probably comes from my bank. Even better if a technical user can manage the keys themselves, but at least lets do the bare minimum!
PGP isn't demanded, but a different kind of signature is increasingly demanded: DKIM. Only a minority uses it to reject mail on its own (although I guess that minority is bigger than the number of PGP users), it's widely used as part of a scoring system.
>All I can say is OMG yes. I've been meaning to write the exact same blog post. How is it we're at 2019 and email clients don't demand some kind of signature?
So that you have a false sense of security when the keys have been stolen from a clueless user you correspond with?
For different people, there are different problems with email. For me, signing is less of an issue, but e2e privacy is: but so much meta data is leaked through headers that there's little point.
Then there's the issue of web of trust which signing requires to be of use, which leaks (/publicises) email addresses in adding security. Its current implementation is utterly unusable for a-technical people (like my mum).
For me, I'd prefer my server to be the arbitrator for signatures, which is a little like dkim anyway. Strong spf settings (-all rather than ~all) fixes a lot of spoofing like your bank example.
It's a problem that I'd dearly loved to see fixed up though... but how? To move onto a better email system we need to keep everyone's use cases intact: some like pop, some imap, some would prefer direct messages instead. Personally, I'd like imap with a touch of direct messaging. So, how do you handle all the handshaking between 4 devices, while maintaining absolute privacy and assurances that nothing has been tampered, but nothing can be leaked?
Hopefully better minds come up with a great solution, because all the ideas I've had are flawed in one way or another! (I've been thinking of writing an article on my thoughts...)
BECAUSE THE USER EXPERIENCE IS SO HORRIBLE EVEN FOR TECH PEOPLE
I don't know how many times this has to be repeated. I have a government mandated encryption key on a smart card and even with that PKI (it's really good), email encryption is not doable with most e-mail clients, the functionality just isn't there. Add that and we'll speak why it might still not be happening. Oh, and don't forget that when an encryption key expires my e-mails shouldn't get lost :D
I agree that the key exchange is difficult, but seriously I'll even take a CA if it means that I can reasonably tell that email that appears to come from my bank probably comes from my bank. Even better if a technical user can manage the keys themselves, but at least lets do the bare minimum!