Now I understand why almost no one uses encrypted email
Secret decoder rings are cool, but they&#x27;re not popular and they never will be. Most people just want a glued envelope and a locked mailbox, not ciphertext. If you want to advance the cause of encrypted email for everyone, and you operate a mail server, make sure it sends and accepts encrypted SMTP connections.<p>Which of these &#x27;encrypted email&#x27; use cases is the one that&#x27;s desirable to people with regards to email, using postal mail as an analogy?<p>1) Letters to you can only be read by you, using a secret decoder ring to ensure that no one else can.<p>2) Letters to you will usually only be read by you, unless someone takes the letter from your mailbox and opens it.<p>3) Letters to you will usually only be read by you, unless the government is spying on you and X-rays the envelope in transit.<p>4) Letters to you could be read by anybody and that&#x27;s fine with you, since they&#x27;re openly written on the back of a postcard by the sender.<p>Loosely, these analogies translate as: GPG is #1, TLS SMTP is #2, SMTP is #3. (There&#x27;s not really an analogy for #4.)<p>A few years ago, Gmail finally added a simple lock icon summarizing whether an email was encrypted-in-transit or not. SMIME (#1) is green&#x2F;locked, TLS SMTP (#2) is gray&#x2F;locked, SMTP (#3) is red&#x2F;unlocked. This single icon has probably done more to advance the cause of encrypted email than the previous twenty years of PGP&#x2F;GPG, and the number of red icons in my email has fallen dramatically over time.<p>That feature was discussed on HN at the time (4 years ago, 209 comments): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11067050" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11067050</a>