From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 25 20:19:45 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1571316A401 for ; Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:19:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jeffrey@goldmark.org) Received: from out4.smtp.messagingengine.com (out4.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.28]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E30A213C455 for ; Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:19:44 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jeffrey@goldmark.org) Received: from compute1.internal (compute1.internal [10.202.2.41]) by out1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id A53072180CA; Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:19:45 -0400 (EDT) Received: from heartbeat1.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.160]) by compute1.internal (MEProxy); Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:19:45 -0400 X-Sasl-enc: j1T1KSxOq3L+n+vzuCAWydDq/YWOJ350ZFirf08VGIxE 1177532384 Received: from [10.1.10.136] (n114.ewd.goldmark.org [72.64.118.114]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 983B61A0C6; Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:19:44 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <200704250910.30808.david@vizion2000.net> References: <200704250910.30808.david@vizion2000.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: <0363BF5C-75AE-4A81-A1CB-D0A0F15E8AB3@goldmark.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Jeffrey Goldberg Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:19:36 -0500 To: David Southwell X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.2) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Digital signed mail- certificate issuing X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:19:45 -0000 On Apr 25, 2007, at 11:10 AM, David Southwell wrote: > Can anyone please tell me the simplest way I can issue my customers > a means of > digitally signing emails they transmit to us via our server. I need > the > chosen method to be compatible with most popular email clients and > popular > webmail services. As someone said, PGP and S/MIME are really the two choices. Neither will be simple enough to go smoothly with all of your users, particular your webmail users. Both involve understanding some apparently tricky concepts, although your users (but not you) can be spared from many of them. Particularly if you wish to issue certificates (either client certificates or a self-signed server certificate) you need to develop a good understanding of how things are supposed to work. > Every customer has their identity and email addresses stored on our > mysql > database. > > Essentially my target is , as far as possible, to ensure that emails > purporting to come from my customers are indeed from them and noone > else. Do you need to know that it really is from such and such person, or can you get by with knowing that it really is from such and such email address? If the latter will be enough, then you can use the same sort of confirmation mechanism that is used by mailing list management systems. Simply require a response sent to a confirmation request sent to the email address you are trying to authenticate. Also, why does this have to be an email based system instead of a web based one? For the latter users can authenticate with a simple username and password. -j -- Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/