14 DAY TRIAL // First Look, the company behind The Intercept, has released today a new software application for Mac and Linux systems called GPG Sync.
The program, which is available under an open source license, allows companies that deploy email encryption technology to keep the GPG keys of all their employees up to date.
The problem with large-scale GPG deployments
GPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) is a technology that allows users to send encrypted emails to one another. Each one of these emails is encrypted and signed for verification purposes with a "private" cryptographic key, stored on each sender's computer.
When exchanging emails with other people via GPG, the email's recipient has to import the other person's "public" GPG key into his email client application in order to decrypt the email and read its content.
The problem with medium-to-large companies is that it's hard for employees to keep a list of all their colleagues' "public" GPG keys.
The company hires new personnel, people leave for better jobs, interns come and go, employees change their GPG keys, and not everyone has the time and knowledge to look up and update their email client's GPG public key inventory every time this happens.
GPG Sync automates the task of updating GPG keys
GPG Sync allows the organization's sysadmin to set up a list with everyone's GPG keys and sign it with an "authority key."
All the company's employees are supposed to install GPG Sync. The application will work by searching the company's network for a key server and download the organization's list of most recent GPG keys, automatically updating the local email client.
Instead of having everybody fumbling around to update their clients with the most recent GPG keys, only the company's network admin has to make sure the GPG key master list is kept up to date.
According to First Look, GPG Sync can download the GPG key master list from a standard HKPS key server (this is customizable), supports fetching fingerprints URL over TOR or other SOCKS5 proxies, creates system tray applet that launches automatically on boot, and updates the GPG key list once a day.
GPG Sync is available for download via the project's GitHub page.
