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OpenKeychain

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by End-to-end (talk | contribs) at 13:52, 11 February 2017. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
OpenKeychain
Initial release2012
Repository
Written inJava (programming language)
Operating systemAndroid (operating system)
LicenseGNU GPLv3
Websitewww.openkeychain.org

OpenKeychain is a free and open source software application that runs on the Android operating system. The application provides strong, user-based encryption which is compatible with the OpenPGP standard. This allows users to encrypt, decrypt, sign, and verify signatures for text, emails, and files.

The application allows the user to store the public keys of other users with whom they interact, and to encrypt files such that only a specified user can decrypt them. In the same manner, if a file is received from another user and its public keys are saved, the receiver can verify the authenticity of that file and decrypt it if necessary.

K-9 Mail support

Together with K-9 Mail, it supports end-to-end encrypted emails via the OpenPGP INLINE and PGP/MIME formats. The developers of OpenKeychain and K-9 Mail are trying to change the way user interfaces for email encryption are designed. They propose to remove the ability to create encrypted-only emails[1] and hide the case of signed-only emails[2]. Instead, they focus on end-to-end security that provides confidentiality and authenticity by always encrypting and signing emails together.

Funding

The OpenKeychain developers participated in 3 Google Summer of Code programs with a total of 6 successful students.[3][4][5] In 2015, one of the main developers got a one-year funding to improve the OpenPGP support in K-9 Mail payed by the Open Technology Fund.[6]

History

OpenKeychain has been created as a fork of Android Privacy Guard (APG) in March 2012. Between December 2010 and October 2013 no new version of APG was released. Thus, OpenKeychain has been started with the intention of picking up the development to improve the user interface and API. A first version 2.0 has been released in January 2013. After three years without updates, APG merged back security fixes from OpenKeychain and some months later rebased an entire new version on OpenKeychain’s source code. However, this process stopped in March 2014, while the OpenKeychain developers continued to release regularly new versions. A number of vulnerabilities found by Cure53[7] have been fixed in OpenKeychain[8]. These are still not fixed in APG since its last release in March 2014. Since K-9 Mail version 5.200, APG is no longer supported as a cryptography provider.[9]

References

  1. ^ "OpenPGP Considerations, Part II: Encrypted-Only Mails". Retrieved 11 Feb 2017.
  2. ^ "OpenPGP Considerations, Part I: Signed-Only Mails". Retrieved 11 Feb 2017.
  3. ^ "GSoC Archive 2014". Retrieved 11 Feb 2017.
  4. ^ "GSoC Archive 2015". Retrieved 11 Feb 2017.
  5. ^ "GSoC Archive 2016". Retrieved 11 Feb 2017.
  6. ^ "Bringing OpenKeychain Support to K-9 Mail". Retrieved 11 Feb 2017.
  7. ^ "Cure53 Security Audit" (PDF). Retrieved 11 Feb 2017.
  8. ^ "OpenKeychain Wiki: Cure53 Security Audit". Retrieved 11 Feb 2017.
  9. ^ "Why APG is no longer supported". Retrieved 11 Feb 2017.
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