Since support for GPG/PGP encryption is listed on the roadmap under "additional features" I assumed it was planned as part of the core base of RoundCube. Someone please correct me if this assumption is wrong. I don't have a strong opinion either way. This is a feature that would almost certainly rely on outside software so it would be an optional feature even it were part of the core (hence perhaps strengthening the plugin argument).
If this were to be developed as a plugin is there any place I can see a preliminary specification for the plugin architecture? Is this something that has been started yet?
If this were to be part of the core base then your statement about OpenSSL brings up a good point. The GPG/PGP encryption feature should be designed in a flexible and extensible way that allows for multiple choices for encryption software (just as there are multiple choices of databases through Pear::DB). In other words, it would have to be designed to support GnuPG, OpenSSL and any future software that allows encryption/signing.
-- Bradley Holt
On 2/15/06, Mark Dehus dehus@csel.cs.colorado.edu wrote:
My suggestion would be to wait for the plugin architecture to be developed and then do encryption/decryption as a plugin. That way it leaves things more open for the user to decide what they want to use (example one could have a plugin that uses openssl instead of PGP). IMHO encryption is more of an extension then something that should be added to the core base of the webmail client.
Mark
Bradley Holt wrote: Sorry, should have thought of this as well in my first e-mail:
http://pecl.php.net/package/gnupg. Thoughts on
relying on PECL
packages?
-- Bradley Holt
On 2/15/06, Bradley Holt
bradley.holt@gmail.com wrote:
I noticed that support for GPG/PGP encryption was on the RoundCube
roadmap
as a planned feature. I, for one, think this would be an
awesome feature to
have in a webmail client. It does bring up some
issues with storing private
keys for signing purposes. I guess users
would just have to trust their
webmail provider with securing their
private keys.
One possibility would be
to implement the feature in two phases:
message encryption first since it
relies on public keys only and then
message signing which relies on private
keys. This project is
abandoned
http://freshmeat.net/projects/openpgpwebmail/ but might be
able to be gutted and reused for the message encryption portion of
the
problem. It looks like it's under the GNU GPL just as RoundCube is
so
using code from it shouldn't be a problem.
If I get some time I may try
and see if I can graft some GPG/PGP
features in to RoundCube. My initial
idea would be to make these
features dependent on GnuPG.
Thoughts?
-- Bradley Holt