| Frequently Asked Questions |
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General
What is EaSecure?
Why do I need
EaSecure?
Can I send EaSecure messages to someone who does not
have EaSecure?
What systems and email clients does EaSecure support?
Can I use EaSecure with a web-based email address,
such as Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, or Gmail?
How much does EaSecure cost?
How do I earn referral fees?
Usage
How do I sign up my email
address for EaSecure?
How do I open an EaSecure message when the
corresponding one-time password has expired?
What is my EaSecure password
used for?
What is "Export File Password?"
What should I do if I forget my password?
What should I do if my key is lost or compromised?
Technical
How many servers does my
email message travel through?
How does EaSecure work under the hood?
What are symmetric-key encryption, public-key encryption, digital signature,
and digital certificate?
How strong is EaSecure encryption?
How does EaSecure "Send to Anyone?"
Why is EaSecure more secure than web-based "Send to
Anyone?"
Why is EaSecure more secure than Identity Based
Encryption (IBE)?
Since the one-time-password is sent unencrypted, what security does
it provide?
General
EaSecure combines "ease" and "secure" into the world's easiest and most secure system to protect your email communications. EaSecure is a public-key-encryption based secure email system, just like S/MIME and PGP, but is made extremely easy to use.
Unlike other secure email systems that require both the sender and the recipient to go through a complicated process to generate keys and obtain certificates before any secure messages can be sent, EaSecure makes the process totally automatic and almost invisible. In addition, EaSecure allows "Send to Anyone," meaning the recipient does not have to be an EaSecure user before you can send him or her an EaSecure message. See "Can I send EaSecure messages to someone who does not have EaSecure?" for more details.
You need EaSecure for the same reason you need an envelope to send letters. Sending an email is much worse than sending a post card from a privacy standpoint. Emails traveling over the Internet can be easily intercepted and read by others. Multiple copies of your emails can be intentionally or unintentionally stored at various places for a long time, or even permanently. (See "How many servers does my email travel through?") They can be easily searched, categorized, and analyzed. Various tools exist that allow virtually anyone to find out anything about you from the traces of electronic communications you conduct everyday. You may think that your everyday emails do not contain much sensitive information, but the problem is, even if each individual email message does not tell much about your, a large collection of your emails will allow one to form a pretty good picture of you, and this will be extremely valuable to marketers as well as identity thieves. For this reason, every one of your email messages should be encrypted, just like every one of your personal letters should have an envelope.
Exposing your communication to prying eyes is only one of the vulnerabilities of emails. Another vulnerability is that email communications can be easily forged or tampered with. Spammers routinely send out email messages pretending to be from email addresses they do not own. Just because an email message you receive has your friend's email address in the "From:" field does not mean that it is truly from your friend. For this reason, every email message should be digitally signed. Digital signatures cannot be forged and digitally signed messages cannot be tampered with.
Every EaSecure message is digitally signed and encrypted using the strongest standard algorithms available today. If you send out an EaSecure message, you can be sure that nobody else except the intended recipients can read your message. If you can successfully open an EaSecure message and the "From:" field shows your friend's email address, you can be sure that the message is truly from your friend and has not been tampered with.
In addition to such robust protection, EaSecure is also extremely easy to use. In fact, sending and opening EaSecure messages is not much different from sending and opening ordinary emails, especially when you use an EaSecure plug-in for your email program. There is no complicated setup process before you can use EaSecure. All you need to do is install an EaSecure client, open one EaSecure message using a one-time password, and create your own password. You will be able to open all EaSecure messages sent to your email address using your own password and be able to send EaSecure messages to ANYONE who has an email address, even if the recipient is not an EaSecure user yet.
Because EaSecure provides so much protection yet is so easy to use, allowing you to send to anyone with an email address, there is no reason to send ordinary unprotected emails anymore!
Can I send EaSecure messages to someone who does not have EaSecure?
Absolutely. EaSecure allows you to send secure messages to ANYONE who has an email address, even if the recipient is not an EaSecure user yet.
Before the recipient becomes an EaSecure user, the message will be protected by a one-time password, because the recipient does not have a public key. Therefore, the recipient will receive two messages: (1) a one-time-password-protected EaSecure message from you; (2) an email message from EaSecure server containing the one-time password.
The recipient just needs to install an EaSecure client and open your message using the corresponding one-time password. After that, the recipient will automatically become an EaSecure user (with public/private keys and certificates) and subsequent messages sent to that recipient will be highly secure public-key-encrypted messages.
After the recipient has opened one EaSecure message using the corresponding one-time password, ALL the one-time passwords for the same email address will expire and cannot be used any more. All the copies of the one-time-password-protected messages that may be left on various servers when traveling over the Internet become safe, even though the one-time passwords are sent in clear text emails. Nobody can open them any more, except the intended recipient.
What systems and email clients does EaSecure support?
EaSecure works on ALL Windows systems currently supported by Microsoft, including Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003. A Linux version is under development and will be released soon. Versions for other systems can be expected in the future as well.
You can use EaSecure with ANY email client, as long as the email client supports file attachments. EaSecure messages arrive in your Inbox with an ".eas" attachment. You can use the EaSecure standalone client to open the attachment and read the message, and also to send EaSecure messages to others.
If you use Outlook 2002, 2003 or Outlook Express 6, EaSecure provides plug-ins that are seamlessly integrated with these email clients. Plug-ins for other email clients will be developed and released soon. The plug-ins and the standalone client can be installed in the same computer without interfering each other. Both can be used to open and send EaSecure messages.
EaSecure also works with web-based email systems, such as Yahoo mail, Hotmail, and Gmail. (See next FAQ item.)
Can I use EaSecure with a web-based email address, such as Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, or Gmail?
Yes. You can receive EaSecure messages with any web-based email address. The EaSecure message is simply an ".eas" attachment that you can download and open with the standalone client.
You can also use the standalone client to send EaSecure messages from a web-based email address even if the web-based email address does not have an SMTP server. If you have access to an SMTP server, you can use your SMTP server to send out EaSecure messages from your web-based email address. If you do not have access to an SMTP server, you can use the SMTP server provided by EaSecure to send out EaSecure messages. Click here for more details.
If you use Hotmail or Gmail, you have more options in addition to using the standalone client. If you use Outlook 2003, you can set it up to access your Hotmail account. You can then use the EaSecure plug-in for Outlook on your Hotmail address. (Please note: This only works with Outlook 2003. If you use Outlook Express to access your Hotmail account, you cannot use the Outlook Express plug-in. You must use the standalone client.) You can also set up Outlook Express to access your Gmail account. This allows you to use the EaSecure plug-in for Outlook Express with the Gmail address.
EaSecure is always free to recipients. You do not need to pay anything if you just want to receive EaSecure messages. This also means that you don't have to worry about incurring any cost to your correspondents when you send EaSecure messages to them.
You can also use EaSecure to send EaSecure messages for up to 30 days free of charge, no obligations. The 30-day trial period will start after you send out your first EaSecure message.
If you want to continue sending out EaSecure messages after the 30-day trial period, you need to become a subscriber, which only costs $29.95 per year.
You can easily recover this cost and even make a lot of money, by referring EaSecure to your correspondents. See "How do I earn referral fees" for more details.
It's very easy. All you need to do is send EaSecure messages to your correspondents. If your message is the first EaSecure message opened by a recipient, you will earn $10 referral fee when that recipient becomes a subscriber, and every time he or she renews the subscription for one year. You can earn such referral fees year after year as long as both you and your correspondent remain subscribers. Therefore, if you successfully refer just three friends to EaSecure, EaSecure will pay for itself! This offer may not last long so you need to act quickly. See EaSecure Referral Program for more details.
Usage
How do I sign up my email address for EaSecure?
By "sign up an email address," we mean how to establish public/private keys associated with that email address. Signing up your email address for EaSecure is extremely easy. All you need to do is open a one-time-password-protected EaSecure message using the corresponding one-time password, and then create your own password. You will be able to use your own password to open all EaSecure messages sent to your email address and be able to send EaSecure messages to ANYONE who has an email address.
How do you receive a one-time-password-protected EaSecure message then? Easy. If you know someone who uses EaSecure, just ask him or her to send you an EaSecure message. If you do not know anyone who uses EaSecure or don't want to bother to ask, you may enter your email address below and click "Send an EaSecure Message to Me". A "Welcome" EaSecure message will be sent to your email address.
How do I open an EaSecure message when the corresponding one-time password has expired?
If you have already used a one-time password to open an EaSecure message sent to your email address, you should have already established your own password for that email address. Your own password can be used to open any EaSecure message sent to the same email address on the computer that you have used the one-time password with. If you want to open EaSecure messages on another computer, you need to export keys to that computer.
If you have never used a one-time password to open any EaSecure message sent to your email address, you may proceed depending on the following situations:
1) You may have received several EaSecure messages protected by one-time passwords and not all of them are expired. In this case, simply use any unexpired one-time password to open the corresponding EaSecure message and create your own password. You can then use your own password to open any and all EaSecure messages sent to the same email address.
2) If all one-time passwords for your email address have expired, you may ask your friend who has EaSecure to send you an EaSecure message again, or you may enter your email address below and click "Send an EaSecure Message to Me":
Either way, you will receive an EaSecure message protected by an unexpired one-time password. You can then use that one-time password to open the EaSecure message and establish you own password. This password can then be used to open all EaSecure messages sent to the same email address.
What is my EaSecure password used for?
When you use a one-time password to open your first EaSecure message sent to your email address, you will be asked to create your own password. This password is not directly used to encrypt EaSecure messages. It is only used to protect your private key file stored on your computer. For this reason, merely knowing your password will not be able to decrypt your EaSecure messages. One must also have a copy of your private key file. Nevertheless, you should still choose a strong password to protect your key file. A strong password should be long and contain mixed upper and lower case letters, numbers, and non-alphanumerical characters. You may also use a long and difficult-to-guess phrase that contains several words and punctuations. Using a single word that can be found in a dictionary is a bad idea. It makes the password vulnerable to so-called "dictionary attacks."
If you are not sure you will always remember your password, you should create an UNPROTECTED export file and store it in a safe place. An unprotected export file allows you to recover your keys and create a new password, in case you forget your password.
What is "Export File Password"?
The "Export File Password" is a password used to protect an export file, in addition to the protection of your EaSecure passwords. In an export file protected by an export file password, each key file stored in the export file is encrypted by the original EaSecure password. In addition, the whole file is encrypted by the export file password.
Such extra protection is necessary if you want to send the export file to another computer through email. In this case, you should use a strong export file password. A strong password should be long and contain mixed upper and lower case letters, numbers, and non-alphanumerical characters. You may also use a long and difficult-to-guess phrase that contains several words and punctuations. Using a single word that can be found in a dictionary is a bad idea. It makes the password vulnerable to so-called "dictionary attacks."
If you want to use an export file protected by an export file password for key recovery purposes, you must make absolutely sure that you can always remember the export file password as well as the EaSecure password for each key file.
What should I do if I forget my password?
If you forget your EaSecure password protecting your private key, you may proceed with the following options depending on whether or not you have kept an UNPROTECTED export file (click here to see what is an unprotected export file and how to create it).
If you have kept an UNPROTECTED export file that contains the private key, you may import your key from that export file and create a new password for your email address. Click here to see how to import keys.
If you have not kept an UNPROTECTED export file that contains the private key, your only option is to reset the password. Resetting the password will allow you to re-establish a new key and a new password for future EaSecure messages, but you will lose the ability to access all past EaSecure messages you have received.
If the password reset feature is enabled for your email address, you can reset your password using the EaSecure Key Manager. Click here for more details.
If the password reset feature is disabled for your email address, you must contact EaSecure customer service (customercare@easecure.com) in order to reset your password.
What should I do if my key is lost or compromised?
If your key is physically lost and you have kept an export file containing your key, you can simply import the key from the export file to recover your key. If your key is simply physically lost but not compromised (e.g. your hard drive crashed), the only thing you need to do is import the key back. However, if your key is physically lost and compromised (e.g. you have lost a laptop computer containing your keys), then you should also change the key after importing your key from the export file.
If your key is physically lost and you have NOT kept an export file containing your key, your only option is to contact EaSecure customer service (customercare@easecure.com) to reset your key. Resetting your key will allow you to re-establish new keys and a new password for future EaSecure messages, but you will lose the ability to access all past EaSecure messages you have received.
If you suspect that your key may be compromised (e.g. if someone you do not trust has accessed your computer), you should change your key.
Please note: It is very important that, after you have changed your key or re-established your new key following a key reset, you should always create an export file with the updated keys and store it in a safe place. If you are not sure you will always remember your password, you should make the export file unprotected.
Technical
How many servers does my email message travel through?
To see how many servers your email message will travel through, open a
Command Prompt window (looks like an MS-DOS window) while connected to the
Internet and type:
tracert <domain>[ENTER]
where "<domain>" represents the recipient's domain (the part of
the recipient's
email address that appears after the "@" symbol). A list of every machine the
message is routed through will appear. Each of these machines and every machine
on the same local network of any of the machines listed will have access to your
email message.
How does EaSecure work under the hood?
EaSecure is a public-key-encryption based secure email system made extremely easy to use. To understand what public key encryption is, please read "What are symmetric key encryption, public key encryption, digital signature, and digital certificate?"
For every EaSecure user, there are two pairs of public/private keys associated with each email address. One pair is the signing keys and the other pair is the encryption keys. The signing private key is used to digitally sign the outgoing EaSecure messages. The signing public key is used by the recipient to verify your digital signature. The encryption public key is used by others to encrypt EaSecure messages sent to you. You can then use the corresponding encryption private key to decrypt the message.
The private keys (both signing and encryption private keys) are stored on your computer, protected by your EaSecure password. More specifically, your password is used to derive a symmetric key by applying many rounds of secure hash functions. The derived symmetric key is then used to encrypt your private keys stored on your computer.
The public keys (both signing and encryption public keys) are stored on the EaSecure certificate server associated with your email address. The server issues certificates, which are digitally signed documents that certify that a particular public key belongs to a particular email address. Verification of the certificates ensures that the public keys used for encryption and signature verification are authentic. A certificate has a specific expiration time.
When you send an EaSecure message, the EaSecure client will first compress the message and then digitally sign it using your private key. It will ask you to enter your password, because it needs the password to decrypt your key file to obtain your signing private key in order to sign the message.
Then, the EaSecure client will check whether an unexpired certificate for the recipient can be found on your computer. If so, the certificate will be verified and the public key in the certificate will be used to encrypt the message for that recipient. If no recipient's certificate is found or the certificate has already expired, the EaSecure client will go to the EaSecure certificate server to retrieve a new recipient's certificate. If the recipient's certificate is available from the server, indicating that the recipient is already an EaSecure user, the public key in the certificate will be used to encrypt the message sent to that recipient and the certificate will be stored on your computer to be used later. The public-key encrypted EaSecure message will be sent to the recipient as an ".eas" attachment on an email message.
When the recipient receives the EaSecure message encrypted using his or her public key, he or she can open the message using the corresponding private key. The EaSecure client will ask the recipient to enter his or her password, because it needs the password to decrypt the key file to obtain the private key. The sender's digital signature on the message will be verified to ensure that the message is authentic and has not been tampered with. The EaSecure client will then decompress the message and display its contents to the recipient.
If the recipient's certificate is not available from the EaSecure certificate server, indicating that the recipient is not yet an EaSecure user. The EaSecure message sent to that recipient will be protected by a one-time password. The one-time password will be sent to that recipient in a separate email from the EaSecure server.
When the recipient opens a one-time-password-protected EaSecure message for the first time, two pairs of public/private keys will be automatically generated. One pair is the signing keys and the other pair is the encryption keys. The public keys (both the signing public key and the encryption public key) will be sent to the EaSecure certificate server for the server to issue certificates for the recipient. The corresponding private keys will be stored on the recipient's computer protected by the recipient's own password. After that, the recipient's certificate will be available from the EaSecure certificate server and subsequent messages sent to that recipient will be encrypted by the recipient's public key. The recipient can open these subsequent messages using the corresponding private key.
After the public/private keys are established for the recipient's email address, the EaSecure messages sent to that email address will not be protected by one-time passwords anymore. They will be encrypted by the recipient's public key. In addition, all one-time passwords previously used to protect EaSecure messages sent to the same email address will also expire immediately. These one-time passwords become useless and cannot be used to open any EaSecure message anymore. Instead, keys necessary for opening previously received one-time-password-protected EaSecure messages will be stored in the key file encrypted by the recipient's password, just like the private keys. This allows the recipient to open those one-time-password-protected EaSecure messages by entering his or her own password.
What are symmetric-key encryption, public-key encryption, digital signature, and digital certificate?
Encryption is the art of scrambling a message before sending it out so that only the intended recipient who knows how to unscramble the data can read the message.
In symmetric-key encryption, the sender scrambles (encrypts) the data using a secret key while the recipient can unscramble (decrypt) the data using the same key. The disadvantage of symmetric key encryption is that it depends heavily on a secure channel to send the key to the recipient. Otherwise, if a third party is in possession of the secret key, the encryption becomes useless. This is a catch-22 situation. You want to use encryption because the communication channel is insecure, but you need a secure channel to transmit the key. Another problem is when you communicate with a large number of people (such as email communications), you need to use a different key for each of your correspondents, and therefore, you need to keep a large number of secret keys.
The concept of public-key encryption was introduced in 1976 by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman to solve the problem of symmetric-key encryption. Their idea was that each person can have a pair of keys, one called the public key and the other called the private key. The public key is used to encrypt the data while the private key is used to decrypt the data. Although the public key and the private key are mathematically related, it is extremely difficult to derive the private key from the public key. This is usually based on a hard-to-solve mathematical problem, such as the factoring of large integer numbers. For this reason, the public key can be made public with no danger of compromising the private key. As long as the private key is kept private by its owner, a message encrypted using the corresponding public key cannot be decrypted by anyone except the private key owner. The most popular public-key encryption algorithm is the RSA algorithm invented by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Len Adleman.
Public-key encryption, however, has one disadvantage: it requires much more computation and therefore is much slower than symmetric-key encryption. For this reason, practical systems usually use a combination of public-key encryption and symmetric-key encryption. The public key is not directly used to encrypt the data. It is used to encrypt a randomly generated symmetric key and the randomly generated symmetric key is used to encrypt the data.
The number of bits is a parameter that determines how strong a key is. A larger key size provides more security but will run more slowly. The number of bits in a public key should not be directly compared with the number of bits in a symmetric key, because the method of cracking public-key encryption is different from the method of cracking symmetric-key encryption. For example, a 512-bit public key is considered quite weak, but a 128-bit symmetric key is still very strong these days. (see "How strong is EaSecure encryption?")
A public-key encryption algorithm can usually be used for a digital signature. The basic idea of a digital signature is:
(1) You use your private key to scramble the data to be signed to produce a
certain mathematical result, which cannot be produced without the private key;
and
(2) The
correctness of the mathematical result can be easily verified by using the
public key.
Because the mathematical result cannot be produced without the private key, the existence of such a mathematical result must come from the actions of the private key owner. In other words, it is a signature that the key owner has produced. Because only the public key is needed to verify the correctness of the mathematical result, anyone can verify it in order to prove the authenticity of the signature.
Because public-key operations are slow, the message itself is not directly signed in most practical implementations. Instead, a hash value computed from the message using a secure hash function is signed. In such implementations, the signature verification process not only will use the public key to verify that the mathematical result is correct, but will also verify that the hash recovered from the signature is consistent with the hash computed from the message. A secure hash function makes it virtually impossible to create two messages having the same hash value. It therefore ensures that any tampering with the message will inevitably change the hash value and thus invalidate the digital signature.
Although public-key encryption and digital signatures provide very strong protection on the confidentiality, authenticity, and integrity of your messages, there is still one missing link. You can use a public key to encrypt the message, but you need to make sure that the public key is truly the public key of the intended recipient. Otherwise, you may be encrypting the message for someone else other than the intended recipient. You can use a public key to verify a digital signature, but even if the signature verification process is successful, you still do not know who has signed the message unless you are sure whose public key is used to verify the signature.
To provide the assurance that an authentic public key is used in encryption and signature verification, a digital certificate is used. A digital certificate is a digitally signed document issued by a Certificate Authority or C.A. The digital certificate is used as proof of the association between the public key and the identity of the key owner. In secure email applications, it usually certifies that a particular public key belongs to a particular email address. EaSecure uses such digital certificates to ensure that a public key belongs to an email address before using that key to encrypt the messages sent to that email address. It also verifies the sender's digital signature and digital certificate before displaying the sender's email address in the "From:" field. For this reason, if you open an EaSecure message and an email address is shown in the "From:" field, you can be sure that the message is truly from that email address. EaSecure digital certificates are automatically issued, installed, and distributed free of charge, and you do not even need to be aware of their existence.
How strong is EaSecure encryption?
The default public key algorithm and key size used in EaSecure is 2048-bit RSA. You can set the key size up to 4096-bit. As a comparison, the largest RSA key that has been cracked so far is only 663-bit, and it took the equivalent of over 50 years of 2.2 GHz Opteron CPU time (see link). A 2048-bit RSA key is still way out of the reach of any possible cracking effort.
EaSecure uses 256-bit AES for symmetric key encryption. As a comparison, the largest symmetric key cracked by brute force (trying every possible key - there is no better method today) so far is only 64-bit, and it took several years of collaboration using thousands of computers over the Internet (see link).
EaSecure uses SHA256, a new FIPS standard, for secure hash functions. Most other systems still use SHA1 or MD5 which are not considered secure anymore (see link).
How does EaSecure "Send to Anyone?"
One problem with public-key encryption is that it requires the recipient to have a pair of public/private keys before you can send a secure message to the recipient. To solve this problem, EaSecure uses an innovative (patent-pending) approach.
If the recipient does not have a public key, the message will be encrypted and protected by a one-time password. The one-time password is sent to the recipient in a separate email. When the recipient opens the encrypted message using the corresponding one-time password, a pair of public/private keys will be automatically generated. The public key will be sent to the EaSecure certificate server and the private key will be stored in a key file on the recipient's computer, protected by the recipient's own password.
After that, the recipient will have a pair of public/private keys and all subsequent EaSecure messages sent to the recipient will be encrypted by the recipient's public key. Keys necessary for decrypting one-time-password-protected EaSecure messages will also be stored in the key file protected by the recipient's own password. The recipient, therefore, can open ALL past and future EaSecure messages sent to his/her email address by entering his or her own password.
On the other hand, the one-time password, and in fact, all the one-time passwords for the same email address, will expire and become useless after the recipient opens his or her first EaSecure message. All the copies of one-time-password-protected EaSecure messages that may be intercepted or captured when traveling over the Internet become safe. Nobody can open them any more, even if they find out the one-time passwords.
Why is EaSecure more secure than web-based "Send to Anyone?"
There are some secure email systems that also claim "Send to Anyone." Such systems work as follows: If the recipient does not have a public key, the message is sent to a "message center" where the recipient can pick up the message using a web browser through a secure link, such as SSL. If the recipient does not have an account in the message center, the recipient will be directed to establish an account at the message center before being able to pick up the message.
The problem with this type of system is that web-based delivery methods are much less secure than public-key-based delivery methods. The message center has access to every message stored there. In addition, because there is no easy way to turn the recipient into a user of public-key-based delivery method, the recipient is usually stuck with a less secure delivery method for a long time.
EaSecure is different. A one-time-password-protected message is more secure than a message delivered through a web-based method, because there is no message center that has access to every message. The recipient is also immediately and automatically turned into a user of public-key-based delivery method after opening just one message using a one-time password. All one-time passwords for the same email address will then expire and become useless after this first-time use.
Web-based delivery methods could be improved if a pair of public/private keys were automatically generated when the recipient opens his or her first message. Subsequent messages sent to this recipient could then be encrypted by the recipient's public key. Such an improvement to the web-based delivery method is covered by our pending patents. In the future, we may seek partnerships with vendors of web-based delivery systems to allow a user of a web-based delivery method to become an EaSecure user after opening the first web-delivered message.
Why is EaSecure more secure than Identity Based Encryption (IBE)?
Another type of system that has the potential to achieve "Send to Anyone" is the Identity Based Encryption (IBE) system. In such a system, the identity of the recipient can be directly used to encrypt the message. In other words, the recipient's "public key" can simply be the email address of the recipient. In this way, every email address already has a "public key," and therefore, encrypted messages can be sent to anyone who has an email address.
The problem with such a system, however, is that it relies on a "Master Secret" stored on a central server to issue everybody's private key. In other words, the central server knows everybody's private key and has the ability to decrypt every message. For this reason, IBE is categorically less secure than the standard public-key encryption.
EaSecure is different. The recipient is automatically turned into a user of standard public-key encryption after opening just one message using a one-time password. No "Master Secret" exists that can derive everybody's private key. The private key is always the sole property of its owner. Nobody in the world can decrypt a message encrypted by a public key, except the owner of the private key.
IBE delivery methods could be improved if a pair of standard public/private keys were automatically generated when the recipient opens his or her first IBE message. Subsequent messages sent to this recipient could then be encrypted using the standard public-key encryption. Such an improvement to the IBE delivery method is covered by our pending patents. In the future, we may seek partnerships with vendors of IBE systems to allow a user of an IBE system to become an EaSecure user after opening the first message delivered using IBE.
Since the one-time-password is sent in the clear, what security does it provide?
A good question. Although a one-time-password protected message is not as secure as a public key encrypted message, it is still much better than plaintext emails. A one-time password-protected message actually has different security levels depending on whether or not the recipient has opened a one-time password-protected message sent to the same email address.
Before you open any of the one-time-password-protected messages sent to your email address, these messages are relatively vulnerable. Because the one-time passwords are sent in plaintext emails, anyone who intercepts such an email and also intercepts the corresponding one-time-password-protected message will be able to open the message. This seldom happens in the real world, however, because most prying eyes want to spy on you without being noticed. Because a one-time password can only be used once, you will not be able to use it again if a spy has already used it, and so you will certainly notice if you have been spied upon. In other words, the one-time-password protection makes it impossible to spy on your messages without being noticed. If you can successfully open a one-time-password-protected EaSecure message, you can rest assured that nobody has spied on your messages.
After you open a one-time-password-protected message using the corresponding one-time-password, things become much better. All one-time passwords for the same email address will expire immediately and become useless. Nobody can use them to open any message any more. Only you will have the necessary keys for decrypting those one-time-password-protected messages. These keys will only be stored in your key file protected by your own password, just like your private keys. By opening a one-time-password-protected EaSecure message, you not only make sure that nobody has spied on your EaSecure messages before, but you also make sure that nobody can spy on them and your future EaSecure messages any further.
Because one-time-password-protected messages have different security levels before and after you have opened one of them, it is important that you open one of them as soon as possible to minimize security risks. It is also prudent after sending an EaSecure message to your correspondent for the first time to urge him or her to open the message as soon as possible.