Even Tim Cook has jumped on the email encryption and privacy bandwagon this week, telling the Daily Telegraph last week that privacy is a “human right” and that if Apple does not encrypt email data the people it affects “are the 99.999pc of people who are good,” and not the terrorists. The issues of surveillance and privacy have reached a whole new audience and we frequently hear from our partners that demand for secure, trusted services is growing.
We took a leap of faith when we began work on OX Guard, and now it feels that our faith is being repaid and that the climate is right for such a service. Since its release, OX Guard has proven to be a big success, and it has driven interest in not only Open-Xchange, but also in the OX App Suite.
However, one question is asked by almost everyone we speak to: “when do you plan to support and implement PGP?” It is of course a very valid question. PGP is by far and away the most commonly used method of message encryption. It would stand to reason that if an encryption product was to be successful in the market, it would need to be compatible with the closest thing we have to an encryption standard.
Up until now, the question about PGP has been met with a request for patience but we can now reveal that a fully PGP compliant solution within OX Guard will be available soon. This means that we will be able to support PGP Mime and Inline; PGP email clients such as GPG Mac Mail and Thunderbird; PGP signatures and more.
We will keep the guest mode feature for non-OX Guard recipients of encrypted email and, of course, keep the extremely simple user experience that has made OX Guard so appealing to begin with.
The next release of OX Guard, with the new PGP features, will be out this summer. As always, we welcome questions, comments and suggestions.