Google has developed an encryption tool for Chrome which allows Gmail users to easily send and receive encrypted e-mails. The tool is called 'End-to-End' meaning that any data leaving the browser will be encrypted until the message’s intended recipient decrypts it. Also received encrypted messages will remain that way until they are decrypted.
Currently Google also uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) for e-mails sent and received by Gmail users. However TLS does not prevent the possibility for internet providers (and thus governments) to view the contents of the mails. To make that impossible, End-to-End encryption is a solution. With this technologys only the sender and receiver have the necessary keys to decrypt and thus read the encrypted email.
End-to-end encryptions already exists for a long time, but according to Google it's always been difficult to use. Therefor the company developed a Chrome Extension that should make it easier to use end-to-end encryption for everyone. The extension is based on OpenPGP which is also used by many other encryption tools.
Those who want to test the extension will have to wait a little, Google has not added it to the Chrome store yet. The company first made the sourcecode of the extension public so researchers can check it for possible security issues and vulnerabilities.
Researchers that are able to find an issue are rewarded with cash and once no more issues are found, Google will release the extension to the public.
