Email is a bad place to keep
secrets.
Edward Snowden’s “revealations” that the National Security
Agency has many means of acquiring the full text of our emails–even if it
doesn’t have a warrant–led to a resurgence of interest in PGP. That’s short for
Pretty Good Privacy, the e-mail encryption tool Snowden used to leak NSA
documents to journalists and one of the few ways to keep your information
private.
“PGP has been around since 1991, but there’s only been a small
number of crypto-enthusiasts who care enough to go through the complication of
setting it up,” says computer scientist Max Krohn. “I think that started to
change last year as people realized they can’t trust their hosting providers.”
The problem is PGP is pretty hard to use. That’s why Krohn and
Chris Coyne–who previously founded study guide company SparkNotes and online
dating service OK Cupid–launched Keybase, a
startup that aims to make PGP easier for average users. The idea is to create
an online directory that lets you instantly locate someone online and trade the
encryption tools the two of you need to communicate privately. That may sound
simple, but it’s a tough nut to crack, and Keybase may have found a way of
doing this with a little help from social networks like Twitter.
The
tiny startup is part of a broader effort to improve email encryption across the
web, a movement that includes countless startups and big names like Google. But
its approach is unique and is available today, even if the kinks need ironing
out.
Click here
for the full article from Wired.