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 Digitally Signing your e-mail
Encrypting your e-mail
Signing individual messages
Automatically signing every outgoing message
Encrypting individual messages
Automatically encrypting outgoing messages
Managing correspondents' digital certificates
Viewing your List of Contacts' Digital Certificates
Managing the digital certificates in your contact list
Digitally Signing your e-mail
Netscape Messenger allows you two ways to configure signing of your messages:
- Every time you send an e-mail
(compose, reply to or forward a message)
- Only when you ask for it by
clicking on the sign button.
The process of digitally signing your email requires the use of your private
key. This key is needed to:
- Prove the authenticity
of each participant in an electronic communication
- Guarantee the integrity
of the message content
- Warrant the non-repudiation
of the electronic communication
Therefore, the recipient of a digitally signed message can
be sure that this message is coming from you and that you wrote what he or she
is reading.
The process of signing a message does not protect the
message from being intercepted and read by someone other than the recipient. To
ensure that only the recipient can read the message, you must also encrypt the
message.
Encrypting your e-mail
To insure the privacy and confidentiality of messages, they need to be
encrypted.
The process of encrypting messages so that only the recipient can decrypt them,
requires the use of the recipient's certificate (containing his or her
public key) in your address book.
To get the recipient's certificate
you can ask him to send you a signed e-mail first (which will contain his
certificate and his or her public key), or you can find the certificate online
from Comtrust public directory.
The use of the public key of
the recipient in the encryption procedure guarantees the confidentiality
of the message (you know the recipient is the only person who can read your
message)
Signing individual messages
To sign an outgoing message:
- Click on the ‘message
sending options’ tab in the message window
- Enable the ‘signed’
checkbox
Automatically
signing every outgoing message
To configure your Messenger Security Settings to automatically sign outgoing
messages:
- Click on the 'security'
icon on the toolbar or open choose 'security
info' from the 'communicator'
menu
- Click on the 'messenger'
link to display the Messenger Security Settings
- To automatically sign outgoing
messages, enable the 'sign mail messages, when it is possible' checkbox
Encrypting
individual messages:
To encrypt an outgoing message:
- Click on the 'message
sending options' tab in the message window
- Enable the 'encrypted'
checkbox.
Automatically encrypting
outgoing messages
To configure your Messenger Security Settings to automatically encrypt outgoing
messages to recipients whose digital certificates are stored in your address
book:
-
Open the Netscape Communicator
Security Advisor by clicking on the 'Security'
icon in the toolbar or by selecting 'security
info' from the 'Communicator'
menu
-
Click on the 'messenger'
link to display the Messenger Security Settings
-
Enable the checkbox that reads
'encrypt mail messages, when it is possible'.
Managing
correspondents' digital certificates
To send someone an encrypted message, you need a copy of their digital
certificate in your address book. When you receive a signed message,
Communicator automatically stores the sender's digital certificate. You can also
find someone's digital certificate from an online directory so that you can send
an encrypted message without first receiving a signed message.
Viewing
Your List of Contacts' Digital Certificates
When you receive or download someone's digital certificate, Communicator stores
it in its certificate list. You can send encrypted e-mails to anyone in this
list.
To view the list of people whose
digital certificates you have:
-
Open the Netscape Communicator
Security Advisor by clicking on the 'Security'
icon in the toolbar or by selecting 'security
info' from the 'Communicator'
menu
-
Click on the 'People'
link in the Certificates category.
Managing
the digital certificates in your contact list
To
view one of your contacts' digital
certificate:
-
Open the Netscape Communicator
Security Advisor by clicking on the 'Security'
icon in the toolbar or by selecting 'security
info' from the 'Communicator'
menu
-
Click on the 'People'
link in the Certificates category.
-
Select the person whose
digital certificate you want to view.
-
Click the 'View'
button.
To verify one of your contacts' digital
certificates:
-
Open the Netscape Communicator
Security Advisor by clicking on the 'Security'
icon in the toolbar or by selecting 'security
info' from the 'Communicator'
menu.
-
Click on the 'People'
link in the Certificates category.
-
Select the person whose
digital certificate you want to verify.
-
Click the 'Verify'
button. Communicator checks to see if the digital certificate was issued by
a recognized certificate authority and checks the expiration date of the
digital certificate.
To delete a digital certificate from your
contacts list:
-
Open the Netscape
Communicator Security Advisor by clicking on the 'Security'
icon in the toolbar or by selecting 'security
info' from the 'Communicator'
menu.
-
Click on the 'People'
link in the Certificates category.
-
Select the person whose
digital certificate you want to remove.
Click the 'Delete
button. Once you delete the digital certificate, you will no longer be able to
send encrypted e-mails to that person.
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