Tutanota, the First Encrypted Email Service with an App on F-Droid (Linux Journal)

[Posted October 11, 2018 by corbet]

Here's a Linux Journal article from one of the creators of the Tutanota encrypted email client. "That's why we decided to build Tutanota: a secure email service that is so easy to use, everyone can send confidential email, not only the tech-savvy. The entire encryption process runs locally on users' devices, and it's fully automated. The automatic encryption also enabled us to build fully encrypted email apps for Android and iOS. Finally, end-to-end encrypted email is starting to become the standard: 58% of all email sent from Tutanota already are end-to-end encrypted, and the percentage is constantly rising."

Tutanota, the First Encrypted Email Service with an App on F-Droid (Linux Journal)

Posted Oct 11, 2018 21:01 UTC (Thu) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (6 responses)

The title is somewhat misleading: it would appear to be an encrypted single-silo messaging service (since that part doesn't use email protocols) combined with an a server-end bidirectional relay for SMTP unencrypted email for those outside their domain.

And thus the "first encrypted email service with an app" hinges on their selective meaning of "service" -- K9 and openkeychain (and earlier APG) have been on FDroid for years.

This move away from open protocols to silos, as with Marlinspike's refusal to federate Signal, carry grave dangers. Those who rely on encryption like these are at the mercy of a single kill switch, whether by corporate decision or government fiat.

Tutanota, the First Encrypted Email Service with an App on F-Droid (Linux Journal)

Posted Oct 12, 2018 9:31 UTC (Fri) by shiftee (subscriber, #110711) [Link] (5 responses)

I switched back from Tutanota because I wanted to be able to choose my email app and use open protocols.
The app before this new open-source one wasn't great.

I also didn't realise that the server side wasn't open source until after I switched away from it.

Their website is a bit economical with the truth:
https://tutanota.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/470...

I switched to Posteo and am happy with it. I care far less about encryption than lock-in.

Tutanota, the First Encrypted Email Service with an App on F-Droid (Linux Journal)

Posted Oct 12, 2018 11:29 UTC (Fri) by gioele (subscriber, #61675) [Link] (4 responses)

> I switched to Posteo and am happy with it. I care far less about encryption than lock-in.

If you care about lock-in you should avoid Posteo: they do not allow you to use your own domain with their service [1], locking you in. And email is the center of your online identity. A domain-lock-in is today worse that a data-lock-in.

[1] https://posteo.de/en/site/faq "Can I use Posteo with my own domains? No. We are an email provider with a particular, privacy-oriented model – and this is not compatible with incorporating own domains."

Tutanota, the First Encrypted Email Service with an App on F-Droid (Linux Journal)

Posted Oct 15, 2018 7:18 UTC (Mon) by shiftee (subscriber, #110711) [Link] (2 responses)

That's a fair point, but at least I can extract my data if I want to leave.

In fact I already have it stored in Thunderbird.

Do you happen to have a service you recommend over Posteo?

Tutanota, the First Encrypted Email Service with an App on F-Droid (Linux Journal)

Posted Oct 27, 2018 3:54 UTC (Sat) by CycoJ (guest, #70454) [Link]

There is mailbox.org (also in Germany), which does allow to use your own domain AFAIK.

Tutanota, the First Encrypted Email Service with an App on F-Droid (Linux Journal)

Posted Nov 7, 2018 7:05 UTC (Wed) by yxejamir (subscriber, #103429) [Link]

I use Fastmail (fastmail.com) for my domain.

Tutanota, the First Encrypted Email Service with an App on F-Droid (Linux Journal)

Posted Oct 16, 2018 3:19 UTC (Tue) by raof (subscriber, #57409) [Link]

[1] https://posteo.de/en/site/faq "Can I use Posteo with my own domains? No. We are an email provider with a particular, privacy-oriented model – and this is not compatible with incorporating own domains."

Huh. That's an odd call, seeing that ProtonMail will happily let you use your own domain (if you use one of the paid-for tiers).

Tutanota, the First Encrypted Email Service with an App on F-Droid (Linux Journal)

Posted Oct 12, 2018 4:30 UTC (Fri) by thomas.poulsen (subscriber, #22480) [Link]

Good to see the Linux Journal back in form.

Web Key Directory (WKD) improves OpenPGP usability a lot

Posted Oct 16, 2018 12:42 UTC (Tue) by ber (subscriber, #2142) [Link]

Note that deploying https://wiki.gnupg.org/WKD will increase the user experience of end-to-end email with OpenPGP a lot. Adoption can be gradual. If everything is implemented and used, key-pairs will be created automatically, the pubkeys send to the email-providers and on typing in an email address, the encrypted communication can start automatically.

(Full disclosure: I am one of the WKD designers.)