Easy Email Encryption Lite The Encryption Method

Easy Email Encryption Lite uses exactly the encryption algorithm as used by our earlier cryptographic product, Cryptosystem ME6. This encryption method is described in Chapter 2 of the ME6 user manual, The Cryptosystem ME6 Encryption Process.

Cryptosystem ME6 was first released in 2001, and has been used continually since then. During this time no weakness in the encryption method has been discovered.

The Cryptosystem ME6 encryption process produces binary output, which (in Easy Email Encryption Lite) is converted into 7-bit ASCII characters. This conversion itself adds a layer of encryption since it is done in a way which depends upon the key.

A secure encryption method can be broken only by a brute force attack, that is, by trying every possible key. Whether this is feasible depends on (i) how quickly keys can be tested and (ii) how many keys have to be tested. Keys used with Easy Email Encryption Lite consist of characters which can be typed at the keyboard (with no distinction between upper and lower case). There are 26 letters, 10 digits and (let's say) 28 punctuation and other characters, for a total of 64 typeable characters. The key can consist of up to 64 characters, but keys longer than, say, 32 characters are unlikely. If we consider only keys of not more than 32 characters, then the number of possible keys is 64^32, which equals 2^192. Thus it is reasonable to assert that Easy Email Encryption Lite has in practice something like a 192-bit keyspace.

Since 64^32 is approximately 10^57, if a billion billion billion keys (10^27) could be tested each second then it would still take approximately a million million (10^12) times the estimated age of the universe (some 14 billion years) to test all possible keys. Easy Email Encryption Lite can thus be considered secure against a brute force attack.

Easy Email Encryption Lite — Introductory Page

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