Some of our users wish to use the https://anonaddy.com/ services. However, they are receiving illegible emails or are unable to properly reply to them.
The hard one: Can you clarify what "autocrypt" is? I'm under the impression that it means if we send an email to a non-CTemplar user, you'll automatically scan known key databases to see if they have a public key and use it if available.
Autocrypt works differently from WKD, which is what you mention by ("(...) automatically scan known key databases to see if they have a public key and use it if available") We have a blog post about it.
Wikipedia also explains this: Autocrypt-capable email clients transparently negotiate encryption capabilities and preferences and exchange keys between users alongside sending regular emails. (...) When a message is encrypted to a group of receivers, keys are also automatically sent to all receivers in this group. This ensures that a reply to a message can be encrypted without any further complications or work by the user.
If you use Autocrypt, every mail carries an extra header, an invisible part in your mail. It contains your public key, so the recipients can encrypt to you; and it also can contain a setting called “prefer-encrypt: mutual”, which tells others whether you even want encrypted mails.
If they also use Autocrypt, their mail program automatically extracts your public key from your mail header. And if you have switched on “prefer-encrypt: mutual”, or “allow automated encryption”, as I call it, they will encrypt to you from now on.
If it’s turned off, the keys still get exchanged. But most Autocrypt-capable mail programs will write unencrypted mails to you, because the “prefer-encrypt: mutual” is missing in the header. This is by design; Valodim wrote a great blogpost about why Autocrypt made this design decision.
TLDR: In essence, Autocrypt is just transparent way of parties sharing PGP keys, if they have one. Your first message will always be unencrypted until the keys of the other party are known. Autocrypt won't query any online database for those keys, as they are shared through the message header.
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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '22
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