80x24

bits and bytes of life.

An Encryption User Story

I'm a user and I have a problem. I can't send a file to my friend. It's a report with confidential data in it. I don't want anyone but my friend to be able to read it.

I have:

How can I send the report to my friend?

I think that the story above represents a genuine use case that isn't being met by software today. PGP is an obvious solution to the problem, and it's the solution that I would likely choose. Unfortunately, PGP is a complete nonstarter for nontechnical people. It is notoriously difficult to use, and a number of high profile cryptographers have given up on using it completely.

Signal is probably the option with the most promise. It's the solution that likely has the highest chance of success with normal computer users. However, the phone number requirement and focus on messaging first makes it awkward to use in a desktop computing setting.

There are also a number of other encryption applications that might do the job. But many are either closed source or lack essential features like authentication.

I believe that a better solution to this problem can and should exist.