[Intevation News] Gpg4win 2.0.0 is ready, it does S/MIME and secure attachments

[Emanuel Schütze]

Press release


Gpg4win 2.0.0 is ready, it does S/MIME and secure attachments
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Osnabrück, Düsseldorf (Germany), 2009-08-12


Today, Gpg4win 2.0.0 was announced on www.gpg4win.org. It is a crypto software 
for Windows that can be downloaded without fees. Version 2.0.0 follows 
version 1.1.4 as a stable product line and includes the progress of the last 
two years of development.

GpgOL - a plugin for MS Outlook - can handle MIME emails now, making signing 
and encrypting attachments much easier compared to the last version. Support 
for S/MIME has also been added for the first time. GpgOL has been completely 
rewritten for this functionality. Now Gpg4win supports both standard crypto 
formats for Email: OpenPGP and S/MIME, both with modern 2048 bit RSA smart 
cards.

S/MIME uses a hierarchical concept of trust, meaning users have to acquire an 
x509 certificate signed by a trustworthy authority in a public key 
infrastructure (PKI). Many medium and large organisations already use a PKI 
making Gpg4win2 interesting for them for end-to-end email security.

Of course Gpg4win2 also aims to be an easy-to-use application for private 
users, who wish to encrypt or sign their email or files under Windows with 
S/MIME or OpenPGP.

Besides GpgOL (for Outlook 2003 and 2007) the Gpg4win package contains the 
standalone email application Claws Mail, GpgEX, GnuPG, 175-page documentation 
and a choice of two certificate managers. Gpg4win2 works together 
with "Kontact for Windows", a Free Software groupware and email application 
and supports Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista.
In addition to English, all dialogs are available in German. The reworked and 
updated documentation called Gpg4win Compendium is available in German only. 
An English version is planned for the end of the year. 

Gpg4win stands for "GNU Privacy Guard for Windows" and is a collection of 
existing Free Software (Open Source) components and is licensed under the GNU 
GPL. Version 2.0.0 can be downloaded with accompanying source code from 
http://www.gpg4win.org . Using the software for any purpose, analysing, 
modifying and redistributing it is explicitly allowed and encouraged. 
Redistributors are required to provide the source code - the usual rule with 
the GNU GPL.

The central crypto-component of Gpg4win2 is GnuPG2. Both certificate managers 
(GPA and Kleopatra) support OpenPGP and S/MIME. In the medium term, these 
cross-platform components are intended to improve the usability of crypto 
solutions because they offer certificate selection services to all 
applications.

GpgEX adds crypto-operations on files to the context menu of the (32bit)
Microsoft Explorer.

Observers had hoped for an earlier release of Gpg4win 2.0.0 because several 
beta versions had been released throughout the last 12 months. The developers 
had to overcome difficulties with the new concept of the combined certificate 
manager Kleopatra and with the windows platform. The proprietary software 
Outlook also posed a problem for GpgOL development because the built-in MIME 
functions do not always work as expected.

New users can check out the compendium or go to the public mailing lists or
web forums for technical questions or to give feedback to the Gpg4win 
community.

Makers of Gpg4win2 are the Germany based Free Software companies Intevation 
(www.intevation.net; project coordination), g10 Code (www.g10code.com; 
Crypto, GpgOL, GpgEX, GPA) and KDAB (www.kdab.com; Kleopatra). They offer 
professional support, consulting and individual solution development for 
email security with Gpg4win.

http://www.gpg4win.org

Contact:
  Emanuel Schütze, Intevation GmbH
  Neuer Graben 17
  49074 Osnabrück
  www.intevation.net
  Email: emanuel.schuetze at intevation.de
  Phone: +49 541 - 335083 - 746


[Press release online: http://gpg4win.org/news-20090812.html]