Is there any point signing/encrypting personal email?

Question

It works fine for corporate mail where everyone in the organization would have a certificate issued to them, but does anyone use certificates to sign their personal mail (let alone use encryption which would require the recipient to have a certificate as well)?

As far as I've observed, everyone uses Gmail or other free webmail in their browser, and this when they're not using Facebook.

I've tried certificate based encryption with a couple of tech minded friends (and also used the android app Chatsecure with certificates), but it runs into the same problem of not everyone having or bothered with certificates.

Answer 1

Is there any point? I think that depends on the use case. If you want to ensure confidentiality and integrity of the message, then you should encrypt and sign.

For example, let say you are having some emails discussion and you want to prevent someone from changing your message and claiming you said something you did not, signing it would help in this case. If you are exchanging financial information, you may want to encrypt this so that way even if someone compromises your email they don't get that juicy data.

You are correct to note that it is a pain to setup and difficult for people to use, which is the main draw back and reason people do not do it. However, if you do use encryption and signing up front, and then you decide later than you needed it, it's there. If you decide later you want to protect it or claim there were changes, its too late.