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We are about to start a journey to the realm of elliptic curve cryptography. It may seem strange at this point as why we should bother with that, but rest assured that we will eventually find out how to use this knowledge to secure our email communication. In this introduction, you can expect to see what an elliptic curve looks like, how it is defined and how it can be simplified if we want to make some practical use of it.

After venturing into the basic architecture of a robust email solution last week, we will look into the remaining missing bits today. Then we should look for some answers about how to secure the email communication end-to-end. In this article we find anti-spam and anti-virus solution integrated into our infrastructure, configure server-side filters, add DKIM[1] signing and verification and give our users nice webmail interface to use.

As we have shown two weeks ago, email can be a very convenient tool for decent communication and in the future we will show that it can also be very secure tool if you need to send confidential information and verify its source using digital signature. But before we venture into that quadrant of space-time, we need to have a solid infrastructure in place. We start building such infrastructure with creating email server that can host virtual domains with multiple mailboxes and aliases. We will also ensure the mailboxes are accessible using common protocols and it is possible to easily administer the whole solution.

In this rant we deviate slightly from our direct path about digital communication and its security and investigate the rain forests of South America. On the verge of these forest a very interesting bird species perseveres. The giant toucan, or - in Latin - Ramphastos toco. This remarkable member of the toucan family has a lot to offer.

As mentioned in the latest posts, there are many possibilities for online communication nowadays. But what do they offer in terms of integrity, confidentiality and - let's face it - persistence? It can be argued that especially the last part is very questionable. For how long have been instant messengers or social networks in use? Not that long. Especially compared to time-tested electronic mail with its complex ecosystem. This ecosystem can actually form a basis for modern and secure communication.