[Users] Save encrypted e-mails unencrypted

[Matthias Winter]

Am Fri, 18 Oct 2013 18:56:59 +0200
schrieb Paul Rolland (ポール・ロラン) <rol at witbe.net>:

> If that's a search problem, I'd prefer Claws to ask me the decryption key
> while searching, and not sacrifice security (remember, even if your HDD is
> encrypted, once the partition is mounted, the encryption doesn't protect
> anymore the content for someone that can gain access to the machine :(

That's a valid point and I agree that it would be a good feature, but most people don't even encrypt their hard drives. After all, your hard drive is usually private, while it is a fact that at least the British and US secret services search and store basically all e-mails sent and I would be very surprised if the Chinese, Russian and several more don't.
It is not only about searching. At some point you will always have to enter your password whenever you access an encrypted e-mail and that is just too inconvenient for most people.

On the other hand encrypting anything does not help you at all if your computer is infected by a Trojan, or if a secret camera is watching your screen, or if the alternative to telling your password is a life in prison or torture. The question is, where does encryption help the most? For most people this is during transmission of the e-mail. I just hope to get some more people (including me) to do that more often.

Saving unencrypted mails should not be the default, but it is a bit strange that there is an option to do this for sent mail, but not for received ones.

Thanks for your reply, I hope to have made my point more clear
Matthias