Secure email and LibreOffice documents

On the Safe Side

Article from Issue 147/2013
Author(s):

Using personal, self-signed certificates and digital encryption.

Aside from GnuPG, which is well-known among Linux users for general file and email encryption and signatures, support for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is built in to many free and proprietary products, such as web browsers, email programs, and office suites. SSL is used not only for encrypting access to online services, but for encryption and digital signatures of documents. In this article,

I'll show an easy way to create and use a personal, self-signed certificate for use in Firefox (Iceweasel in Debian), Thunderbird (Icedove in Debian), and Libre/OpenOffice.

Basics

The core principle of SSL is the same as in all "public key"-based methods: Two complementary keys are created. The first is the "secret" key, which is known only to its owner and never leaves the owner's computer, and the second is the "public" key, which must be distributed to all communication partners.

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