Home > Gwebs, PGP, Security, email, encryption > Email Encryption for Mobile Users with GnuPG and PGP

Email Encryption for Mobile Users with GnuPG and PGP

September 9th, 2009

When I started my work at Gwebs, this was one of my first questions. I mean, so far that our own products don’t support mobiles, smartphones, pdas, etc.  Anyhow, our product co-operates nicely with all software that use GnuPG (GPG), it’s tested with quite wide scale of applications.

I wanted to know how I can access my encrypted messages whenever and wherever. I just got so dependent on mobile usage of email from my previous job at one telecommunications company, sometimes you just have to be there 24/7 available, for your colleagues all around the world, your customers and clients. This is it what’s going on right now within IT-industry. Although, no-one is paying me 24/7 salary, but it just integrated for me as a habit. And now, sometimes I found myself at the bus stop reading my email, thanks for the reasonable price of data transfer.

I made some research about this topic and found out that encryption with GPG in smartphones is not so common than I thought. Although, nowadays, when smartphones are having Windows Mobile, Linux, Android, Apple, Symbian and maybe some other operating systems too. It seems to be easier to find a solution for encryption from PGP (Pretty Good Privacy).

I found out that Symbian used to have one component, made by Nokia, but no-one really knows is it still usable or not. About Apple and Android I really cannot say so clearly, ’cause both systems are pretty unfamiliar to me. So far Apple seems to have quite much research and development around iPhone, so I’m pretty sure that there are some encryption software as well.

Windows Mobile then, there seems to be a huge gap between versions (5.0/6.0/6.1/6.5) while searching supported applications, anyhow there are some software for encryption available. I haven’t tested these yet by myself, but will do later. At first I’d like to have the official update for WM 6.5.

Well, Linux is another chapter of it’s own. There are so many free, open-source encryption software available that it will be more difficult to find the one which suits the best for your needs, than just find one.

The other solution for encryption in mobile devices is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), it’s not open-source and normally these applications are not free. But this also makes the difference to availability. There are so many PGP applications available for all these operating systems that I mentioned earlier. And of course, while the software is not freeware, you can expect some support for troubleshooting and equivalent for your money.

Anyway, I think that this is one of the main things nowadays while talking about email security and privacy. Because so big share of today’s business emails are sent by mobile devices, it’s really needed to have some software to obtain privacy within this communication way too. And for covering usability issues, it’s nice to have a software which co-operates with the same encryption method as while using a PC.

I’ll let you know later about my testing, WM 6.5 + PGP or GPG encryption software + MailCloak in PC. Having my own key in every single device (work, laptop and smartphone). And then testing it out, how it works and how easy it is really to use. But that’s going to happen after the Windows Mobile 6.5 release, which suppose to be soon.

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Gwebs, PGP, Security, email, encryption , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  1. Djo
    January 24th, 2010 at 22:29 | #1

    I would really like to use OpenPGP on my nokia E71. I use Thunderbird with Enigmail (works with GnuPG) on my pc, but just as you say, on the way encryption is annoying and limiting me. Any idea’s?

    Thank you in advance…

  2. January 30th, 2010 at 05:52 | #2

    claws mail runs on the N900, and I think that it will run pgp. Not sure about symbian, but i would love it if one of the 3rd party mail apps did. I wouldn’t expect nokia to release it on their own.

  3. August 14th, 2010 at 01:01 | #3

    Hi there,
    I wonder whether you already ran one or the other test meanwhile. I am searching relentlessly to find a suitable solution for my htc hd2. It s wm 6.xx.
    I would highly appreciate to learn about anything that brings me closer to a solution for my pda.
    Thanks in advance
    Rudolf

  4. Holly
    September 6th, 2011 at 00:32 | #4

    Here is email encryption for the Android. It uses a PGP version application and an email client. Not too bad once you get through the steps:

    http://www.encrypt-the-planet.com/androidemailencryption.htm

  5. Quantom
    September 11th, 2011 at 11:16 | #5

    Here is email encryption for android. Its still a “little beta”:

    http://www.encrypt-the-planet.com/androidemailencryption.htm

  6. February 19th, 2012 at 19:16 | #6

    Apple now has Rhapsody as an app, which is a great start, but it is currently hampered by the inability to store locally on your iPod, and has a dismal 64kbps bit rate. If this changes, then it will somewhat negate this advantage for the Zune, but the 10 songs per month will still be a big plus in Zune Pass’ favor.

  7. March 28th, 2012 at 05:59 | #7

    I’ve been surfing online more than three hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It is pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the web will be much more useful than ever before.

  8. April 25th, 2012 at 11:31 | #8

    Have you ever ever thought about adding just a little bit more than simply your thoughts? I mean, what you say is important and everything. But its received no punch, no pop! Possibly in the event you added a pic or two, a video? You can have such a more highly effective blog in the event you let people SEE what youre speaking about instead of just studying it. Anyway, in my language, there are not a lot good supply like this.

  1. January 22nd, 2010 at 15:35 | #1
  2. December 4th, 2011 at 07:33 | #2
  3. December 9th, 2011 at 13:31 | #3