Masterarbeit im Studiengang IT-Sicherheit von Martin Ronai: Making PGP Usable – Development of a Concept and Implementation of a Usable PGP Email Client

Abstract: This thesis presents a comprehensive literature review of existing PGP solutions. Existing PGP applications have usability shortcomings, and a lack of user understanding makes consistent and correct usage a challenge. Since only a small percentage of email traffic is encrypted, it remains necessary to implement privacy-enhancing measures. This is especially important as many users may not possess extensive knowledge of encryption methods. Our main goal is to design and implement a PGP email client in compliance with modern frameworks and methods of usable security. A crucial part of this paper is a conducted evaluation of the client, in which users perform pre-defined tasks, in particular the exchange of PGP-encrypted mails. As a result, even users unfamiliar with PGP were able to exchange encrypted mail, albeit at a higher time cost. While this client does not offer all of the features that PGP implements, our focus is on ease of use and practicality. Our results make a contribution to the further development of secure and user-friendly email communication solutions.

Betreuer*in: Kilian Demuth

Prüfer: Prof. Dr. Dr. Christian Reuter