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OpenPGP relies on something called a Web of Trust, in which everybody is a potential CA. You, as the user, sign your keypair and then others verify whether or not the key really belongs to you by signing it themselves. OpenPGP, on the other hand, doesn’t rely on a centralized trusted authority. These are referred to as CAs, or Certificate Authorities.

Using S/MIME, the user obtains the certificate and keypair from a centralized trusted authority. That difference is in how you get your public/private keypair. The software never converts the binary data into ASCII. Your binary files stay right the way they started.Īnother key difference between S/MIME and OpenPGP is more apparent to you, the user. On the other hand, OpenPGP wraps the text and any binary attachments in “ASCII Armor,” an encoding layer. On the recipient’s end, software decodes the ASCII into text or binary files. Your email software transmits nearly everything as ASCII. S/MIME utilizes a standard way of putting arbitrary data into your email, with a definition of what type of information is there. Key Differences Between S/MIME and OpenPGPįrom a technical standpoint, S/MIME and OpenPGP function pretty differently.

Then, the software encrypts the message using your recipient’s public key.

It’s signing the email with your private key.

Once you receive a digitally signed email, your mail software saves the sender’s public key so you can later send encrypted messages to that person.Īs your email software digitally signs and encrypts a message, it’s doing two things: When you send a digitally signed email to someone, you’re signing the email with your private key and sending that person the public portion of your keypair. They rely on a pair of keys, one public and one private. How Secure Email Worksīoth methods use Public Key Cryptography to digitally sign, encrypt, and then decrypt your email. You probably know of this one in the form of OpenPGP. Another is PGP, which stands for Pretty Good Privacy. One of those is Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, or S/MIME, which is what Apple Mail uses. Groups came up with several standards to accomplish this.