Encrypt your webmail

Dale O Sea · Post by **Dale O Sea** » 09-21-2006 02:27 AM

Freenigma adds privacy technology (with strong e-mail encryption) to your favourite webmail service.

Now you can decide for yourself which of your e-mails are private.

Today, all your e-mails are stored and sent around the planet in plain text. And today you have no control over what happens to your private or business e-mail conversations and you can't prevent others from reading them. Get your privacy back! Encrypt your private and business e-mails to protect your freedom, privacy and your business secrets.

Freenigma site

Works with Google's gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail with more services coming.
Firefox browser required.

SetiCruncher · Post by **SetiCruncher** » 09-21-2006 01:09 PM

Sounds great! Has anyone used this?

Dale O Sea · Post by **Dale O Sea** » 09-21-2006 04:08 PM

I just installed the Firefox extension yesterday, SC, no problems there. But to use it, both the sender and recipient of your freenigma encrypted message need to be using it and I haven't hooked up with anyone so equiped. I don't actually have any real security need for it but like the privacy it provides. I've been thinking seriously about going all encrypted since everything on the Internet is now funneled thru the NSA filters nowadays (not that I have anything to hide) with a solution I heard much goodness about - TrueCrypt. This little app is kinda just getting my feet wet in encryption. Steve Gibson's security podcast, SecurityNow spawned this interest. You should give that a listen when you get a chance, if you haven't already - very educational.

SetiCruncher · Post by **SetiCruncher** » 09-21-2006 07:47 PM

I've registered for the invite, now I'm just waiting for the download URL from them. I'll have it up and running soon then we'll test it and see how well it works

Assuming my firefox let's me this time, the last extension I tried to install it wouldn't allow me to install it?????????

Dale O Sea · Post by **Dale O Sea** » 09-21-2006 08:50 PM

You couldn't install an extension? What reason did it give? You have to give each site you get extensions from permissions to install them, which I'm sure you know but am throwing it out there anyway. Do you have Nightly Tester Tools installed? With this installed any extension you install is allowed, even bad ones. I installed it right after Firefox 1.5 came out and half my favorite extensions wouldn't work. I see on the NTT developer's site that he's had a falling out with the Mozilla folks but the ext should still be fine.

When you get it up and running (it only took a day or two after I signed up to get my invite) send me an encrypted email on my gmail acct (address in sig) and we'll see how/if it works. Personally I think all email should be encrypted always. It's a federal crime to open and read snail mail.

Now what would be kewl next is if everything of mine on Google's servers was encrypted...that will never happen. Not in these troubled times of NSA and Homeland Security snooping. I'm surprized TrueCrypt isn't illegal like it is in France, Russia and I think Germany.

SetiCruncher · Post by **SetiCruncher** » 09-21-2006 09:42 PM

Dale O Sea wrote: You couldn't install an extension? What reason did it give?

It tells me Software installation has been disabled, but no matter what setting I change its a no go on installing extensions. So I uninstalled FireFox, then re-installed a fresh copy and updated it and still get the same result. Software installation disabled. Oh well.

No biggie though I can install extensions on my secondary box, all the same settings. I'll install the Encryption extension on my secondary computer and we'll play with it anyway

The joys of multiple computers, one gets buggy, just use another until the bugs get worked out

SilentBlue · Post by **SilentBlue** » 09-22-2006 07:22 AM

SetiCruncher wrote: It tells me Software installation has been disabled, but no matter what setting I change its a no go on installing extensions. So I uninstalled FireFox, then re-installed a fresh copy and updated it and still get the same result. Software installation disabled. Oh well.

No biggie though I can install extensions on my secondary box, all the same settings. I'll install the Encryption extension on my secondary computer and we'll play with it anyway

The joys of multiple computers, one gets buggy, just use another until the bugs get worked out

http://ffextensionguru.wordpress.com/20 ... tallation/

Software Installation Disabled
This issue mainly occurs when upgrading to a major version of Firefox such as going from 0.* to 1.0.* or 1.0.* to 1.5.0.* versions. For some reason Firefox disabled the installation of themes plug-ins and extensions XPI files. These instructions for re-enabling downloads, are from the Mozilla site:

Firefox 1.0

1. From the ‘Tools’ Menu select ‘Options…”
2. Click ‘Web Features’
3. Place a check in the box ‘Allow Sites To Install Software’

Firefox 1.5
Starting in Firefox 1.5 the option to allow web sites to install software has been removed from the user interface (UI). The software installation option must be enabled to allow installation of themes, extensions and certain plugins

If you previously disabled this option and then updated to Firefox 1.5, the disabled setting will be carried over. Since the option to enable software installation no longer exists in the UI, you will need to use about:config to reset the “xpinstall.enabled” preference to the default “true” value. Here’s step by step how to do this:

1. Type about:config into the Location Bar and hit enter.
2. Type xpi to filter and find xpinstall.enabled.
3. Make sure it’s value is true. (double click will toggle).
--------------------------------------------

Just to add to this information, you might have to restart FF once or more for the extension to work.

SetiCruncher · Post by **SetiCruncher** » 09-22-2006 10:26 AM

SilentBlue,

Your Awesome! That totally worked!

Thank You

SetiCruncher · Post by **SetiCruncher** » 09-22-2006 10:36 AM

Looks like its all installed and working well

Unable to dig up your addy there Dale so drop me a test E-mail Here and we'll see how well this works

Dale O Sea · Post by **Dale O Sea** » 09-22-2006 03:58 PM

SetiCruncher, this sounds stupid but I can't find the buddy list. From what I've read it should be a sidebar but none come up and I can't find any button to bring it up. Does it come up for you? I'll leave my sig on for this post so you can grab my gmail address and send me and try it from your end. The documentation on this is very scant - that or I'm missing something.

SetiCruncher · Post by **SetiCruncher** » 09-22-2006 04:49 PM

E-mail sent!

I had to manually log into my Freenigma account and manually add you to the "Buddy" list. so far its a bit labour intensive, but maybe these are bugs that willl be worked out in later versions as its upgraded.

Test E-mail:

Dale,

This is a test E-mail to confirm that Freenigma is working.

Seems to be a little buggy so far, with users having to log into their Freenigma account to manually add to the Buddy list. But I'm sure as it grows in popularity it'll be upgraded to work a little more seemlessly with a few more features of ease. Otherwise it seems to be working fairly well with hotmail only a few minor bugs that I've noticed so far.

Let's hope this works.

SC

Keep me posted on results at your end

SetiCruncher · Post by **SetiCruncher** » 09-22-2006 05:16 PM

Just added my Gmail account to it. It seems to be working, but with a few small bugs similiar to the ones in Hotmail.

Seems I can easily encrypt and decyrpt messages from myself, no problem

Dale O Sea · Post by **Dale O Sea** » 09-23-2006 05:24 AM

Sorry SC. I got busy with other stuff and couldn't get back to that. I'll try some more tomorrow. I have one of those ad-proof HOSTS files - wonder if that could be part of the problem..?

SetiCruncher · Post by **SetiCruncher** » 09-24-2006 02:04 AM

Dale O Sea wrote: I have one of those ad-proof HOSTS files - wonder if that could be part of the problem..?

Could be, you also have to manually log into your Freenigma account to manually search and add addresses to your buddy list before it will work.

I have no problem sending and receiving, Encrypting and Decrypting messages from both my Hotmail and Gmail accounts.

I'm interested to see what features they add in future versions. Hope they add a few more Webmail providers as I have another account I'd like to add as well

Hope you get the bugs worked out there Dale, it really is kinda neat, a bit labour intensive, but still pretty cool for a free service

Dale O Sea · Post by **Dale O Sea** » 09-24-2006 02:52 AM

Sorry SC, I never got around to messing with it today either. maybe tomorrow..if I remember, heh.