ID required to send encrypted mails?

[Count Zero]

Outlook always asks me for a digital ID for MY account to send someone an
encrypted mail.
I imported the other persons certificate into my address book anf if I use
an email account with ID I can send encrypted mails to him. Nevertheless
other accounts I don't have IDs for do not work. Outlook always tells me
that I need a digital ID to either encrypt or sign mails.
In my option for encryption the other persons ID should be sufficient.
What can I do?

 

[Brian Tillman]

Outlook always asks me for a digital ID for MY account to send
someone an encrypted mail.
I imported the other persons certificate into my address book anf if
I use an email account with ID I can send encrypted mails to him.
Nevertheless other accounts I don't have IDs for do not work. Outlook
always tells me that I need a digital ID to either encrypt or sign
mails.
In my option for encryption the other persons ID should be sufficient.
What can I do?

When sending encrypted mail, you always encrypt with _your_ private key and
tthe recipient decodes with your public key. That way, they guarantee the
message is from you, since only you know your private key and only your
public key will decrypt the message.

 

[Count Zero]

When sending encrypted mail, you always encrypt with _your_ private key and
tthe recipient decodes with your public key. That way, they guarantee the
message is from you, since only you know your private key and only your
public key will decrypt the message.

No, you confuse signing and encrypting. I don't want to sign the message,
only encrypt it. In Outlook Express this works: a public key is sufficent to
encrypt a message.

 

[Guest]

First of all, what Brian says is incorrect. the only time your private key is used to encrypt and your public key used to decrypt is when you do signing but i'm not going to get into that here.

The reason you need a digital ID eventhough you want to encrypt to somebody else is that outlook and outlook express will encrypt the message to yourself using your digital ID and store it in your sent items folder. In outlook express, it will prompt you that if you do not have a digital ID, you will not be able to open the mail in the sent items folder. I'm not sure if outlook prompts that message as well or it just refuses to allow you to send the mail. By decent logic, outlook should prompt you but i'm not a outlook user so can't really comment on that.