If you're still not sure why somebody would want to sign their data (outgoing mail in this case), then you may want to read our gpg guide about digital signatures. Digitally signing an email also allows the recipient to prove that the email has not been tampered with in any way. If someone digitally signs their outgoing email messages, then (as long as their private key remains private) there is no question about who sent the signed email. So if you get an email from somebody that you think you know, how can you be sure that it was actually sent from them? If they manage to steal the private key, they still need to know its passphrase in order to use that private key!Īlso, these days evil people will sometimes try to spoof email. In the event that their Gmail account has been compromised, the intruder will not be able to read any of these emails because the intruder does not have the private key.
It all boils down to how private you want to keep the information in your emails (bear in mind that the webmail interfaces to Gmail and other email providers can't be used to encrypt and sign your email).įor example, a business using Gmail may wish to encrypt any intellectual property contained in their emails. Why would you bother using Thunderbird Mail to encrypt or digitally sign your messages sent from GMail or Yahoo! Mail, etc. Why would you want to use this functionality in Ubuntu?
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