Re: Email encryption and digital signatures

[Jesse Thompson <jesse.thompson () DOIT WISC EDU>]

On 06/08/2010 10:23 AM, Walker, Sam wrote:
> I have received a request concerning email encryption and digital
> signatures. A quick search found a few companies (such as PGP and
> Entrust) that support both requirements. I was curious if anyone had any
> opinions and experiences with email encryption and digital signatures in
> your current environment. Thanks for your time.

We use a PKI.  http://www.cio.wisc.edu/security/digitalCert/

Contact pki () doit wisc edu if you want more details about our PKI and its 
practical applications on our campus.

Speaking from an email perspective, I think that we are making good use 
of S/MIME signing.  We strongly encourage all campus mass email messages 
be digitally signed as a way to distinguish our communications as more 
trustworthy.  S/MIME is built in to most desktop clients, and we set 
things up so that digitally signed messages show up as special in our 
web client.  The usefulness of email encryption is harder to gauge, 
since it depends on the work flows of individual groups.

Jesse Thompson
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Attachment: smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature